Mission 5 - 12/23/10 9:50am Mother Henn

For me, an employee must have passion for what they do - it can't just be a job, it must be a vocation, something you live, breath, love. This passion would come through in the interview I believe, it would be evident by the level of enthusiasm one shows for the work they do. I'd actually look for the word to be used by the candidate to express how they feel about their chosen profession. The next desired quality would be expertise and not just in workforce development. Many of US came here not really knowing the field. The expertise would be in human relations, how to effectively interact with others, expertise in problem solving because truly that's what we do, expertise in finding help - knowing what's available in the community and how to access that help. Their expertise may be in working with diverse populations, or customer service but there needs to be expertise is something relevant to what we do. I would simply ask the candidate to tell me their field of expertise and how that relates to what we do. A waitress would offer high energy and superior customer service, a former TANF recipient would offer expertise in how the system works and a firm grasp on resources available, etc. The third quality needed to fit the culture would be warmth. When hiring recently for our front desk, Beth and I interviewed some excellent candidates, people with years of office experience. But it was Brenda's smile that won us over. We both knew instantly that she was the one based mainly on her warm and beautiful smile. She told us how nervous she was and laughed awkwardly and I knew this was the person I wanted to work with. You can't fake it, you either care about others or you don't, and I believe that comes through rather quickly with a warm, sincere smile.
Now for the negatives. The 'gong' points for me would be lack of sense of humor, lack of common sense, and lack of creativity. I think sense of humor would be easy to detect - an interview question asking for a funny story from your previous employment would be a good test and would not be a usual question, something they probably didn't rehearse. Common sense may be more difficult to measure. Many candidates have tons of education, considered book smart, but can't figure out how to use the copier or help a client get a winter coat. Common sense - or maybe another way to say that is 'street smarts', is essential in this position. Many of our VIPs possess it, need it to survive, and respect those who possess it as well. I suppose we'd need to develop a good interview question to see if it exists in a candidate - maybe ask what obstacles they needed to overcome and how they did that - I'll need to think on that one. Finally, creativity. Creativity is so important for what we do. We work with such diversity, every VIP is unique, and we need to dig deep sometimes to offer solutions, using creativity to come up with ideas. We need to 'create' programs that work, 'create' resumes that work, 'create' unique approaches to reach our VIPs. A good question to measure this might be, "Computers are down but your customer needs a resume for an interview scheduled for this afternoon. How will you solve this dilemma?"
Would I have the ability to not hire someone, putting the contract in jeopardy? Yikes! I guess the answer is yes but I might be proactive, asking for candidates to state in their cover letter why they fit our culture, forcing applicants to research our core values and company culture BEFORE the interview process, ensuring all candidates we choose to interview are somewhat of a fit for our company based on what they say in the cover letter. The interview process may be more efficient if we've already asked the candidate to tell us why they match us.