If you’ve been reading these tips for a while, you know I like to define terms. So, let’s look at a definition of mission:
The purpose or the most important aim of an organization.
Before you can find out how your applicant will contribute to your organization’s mission, we need to establish with the applicant what that is.
You could simply state it to the applicant, or you could take a shot at asking them what it is. This second approach will reveal how much research they did before showing up for the interview.
Okay, it’s established the mission is to make such an amazing chocolate-covered strawberry that people feel compelled to immediately tell their friends about it.
Now, let’s ask the simple and direct question:
“Alice, how do you see contributing to our mission?”
If they don’t answer fairly quickly with a well-thought-out answer, it’s not necessarily the end of the world. Well, frankly, no bad answer to any hiring interview question is the end of the world, but I digress. They could be a great hire and then learn over time how to contribute to your company’s purpose.
But if they do impress you with their answer, that’s a good indicator that they did a bit of due diligence before they showed up for the interview.
And one approach to evaluating applicants is how many “good indicators” are they collecting for themselves? More, of course, is better.
As the law varies in each area, please check with an attorney to ensure you are applying these tips within the law.
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