15 Interview Questions To Help You Find Reliable Employees
Last week I promised you a list of interview questions that will help you screen out the flakey job applicants. The ones who won’t show up, who run on their own schedule and disregard yours. The ones you can’t count on to be there for your business, no matter how understanding you might be as a boss.
In general, people put their best foot forward during their interviews. Nobody will tell you “Hey I’m probably not gonna show up thirty percent of the time and I take super long coffee breaks”.
But if you’re lucky, you might get a sense for the way they prioritize things, the way they view work, and what it means for them to give their word.
This is why an updated list of interview questions is not a solo strategy to improve your absenteeism rates. It only works as a piece of a much bigger work culture puzzle.
Although there are no perfect questions for the weeding out of unreliable job candidates, here are a few for you to consider:
Could you tell me about a time that your punctuality or attendance affected your work?
When you’ve had extra time/down time available in a previous position, what did you do with it?
How do you define what it means to be a reliable and efficient employee?
Describe ways you found to make a previous job more efficient, or techniques you used to make yourself more productive.
Describe a time you found yourself unable to meet multiple deadlines, what did you do about it?
Tell me about a time you promised to handle something at work that was either very difficult or time intensive?
Do you consider yourself a team player? why/examples?
Tell us about your schedule and availability?
Tell us about a time when you could not complete an important project or task on time, what did you do?
Tell us about a time when a personal issue interfered with your work schedule, how did you handle it?
What would you consider to be good reasons to miss work?
Have any of your colleagues been regularly late to work? How did you react and/or handle the situation?
How dependable do you feel you are and why?
What are the characteristics that you prize most in a co-worker? Why?
What do you consider excessive absenteeism?
As I mentioned last week, it’s great to run these questions by your reliable employees and see how they would answer them. This helps you know what answers you’re looking for.
I’d also keep a particular eye out for people who do a lot of blaming. Blaming their past employers or supervisors, blaming their family, blaming their car. In my experience, reliable employees tend to take responsibility for their own actions. Not a hard and fast rule, but one that’s served me well, and I hope it serves you well too.