One frustration commonly voiced by small business owners from throughout the country is how to find the right people for their small, entrepreneurial, multiple-hat-wearing companies. While we all know, unfortunately, that a great interview does not necessarily make for a great fit, being as clear as possible during the interview can help a business owner bypass a few obvious mismatches. The key to more effective interviews is what questions you ask and how well you listen, and, of course, how well you apply the lessons of the past.

Think you already ask good questions and listen smartly? Well, many of today's interviewees have been schooled on savvy interview books and workshops. Canned answers flow like the great Mississippi. It's well worth your time to take your skills up a notch to help you choose good-fit employees.

The great thing about refined communication skills is that they're useful in just about every situation, whether at the office or at home or at a community meeting. So time invested in learning and practicing the tools outlined below can be money in the bank and stress off your shoulders.

Before the interview:

• Know what you need. This seems like a no-brainer, but small business owners can easily miss or misinterpret this step because they've got a lot of other responsibilities, as well as time and budgeting pressures. Take a few minutes to map out a job description that includes key tasks and the sort of traits associated with a person who handles those tasks well.

• Look at what works. If you've got other employees, notice what personality traits makes someone a good fit for your small-business culture. Ask good-fit employees what sort of person would be most successful on your team, then invite them to interview the candidates. You might be surprised when they raise insights and concerns you've not considered.

• Schedule multiple interviews. Let candidates know up-front that you'll be scheduling multiple interviews for all candidates you're considering. You might conduct a telephone interview first, to screen out obviously inappropriate candidates, followed by a group interview with selected employees. Once your employees have met with candidates and have forwarded an assessment to you, meet with the candidates yourself.

• Plan and issue an employment test. At IVC, we've created a test that makes work style, skill level and personality type more clear. All candidates invited to participate in a second round of interviews take the same test, the results of which give us more information for making a good decision.

During the interview:

• Be realistic. A candidate is more likely to be a good fit if they've worked in—happily and productively—other small business, entrepreneurial or start-up environments. Someone who has worked only in corporate or bureaucratic environments, even if they're incredibly nice and may ultimately make the transition, are in for an extreme culture shock on your dime. If you don't have the six or 12 months to wait for the person to transition, look for candidates whose work history shows a preference for the responsibility, juggling, hands-on and wearing many hats that comes with working for a small business.

• Ask questions that will give you the info you need. The questions you ask can help you find out whether a person is more comfortable with details or the big picture, is a self-starter or an order-taker, or thrives on a diverse, ever-changing environment or a stable, routine-oriented one. Most recruiting ads feature requests for conflicting skills, like asking for an accountant who's strategic or big-picture oriented. While someone may hone capacities for both, most of us are much more effective and efficient in one or the other. This is where it's helpful to know what you need.

• Close your mouth and open your ears. Too often, insecure interviewers turn the conversation into a self-centered diatribe about their wants and needs. Why is this too often a disaster? Because you can't listen when you're talking, and listening is exactly what helps you identify a good match. Aim instead for a dialogue, where you ask pointed questions and listen, carefully, to the response.

• Notice and match language for deeper understanding. Human beings have certain ways of taking in and digesting information. Some people rely more heavily on their visual pathway, while others demonstrate a preference for their auditory or kinesthetic mode. What does this mean? If you're more comfortable in auditory mode and a candidate (or client, for that matter) operates predominantly in visual mode, you might experience frequent miscommunication; it seems like you're on different wavelengths. The preference shows up in language, among other things, so ask an open-ended question and notice whether a candidate's language emphasizes visual, sounds or physical/feelings. You can create a better rapport and perhaps have a more productive meeting if you're speaking the same language. (Look for books by Anthony Robbins or on NLP for more info.)

• Go with your gut. Sometimes you can't put into words why someone is or is not clicking with you. If you aren't sure whether to trust your intuition, delay the decision for a day or two until the direction from your instinct becomes more clear.

Sample questions to consider:

Ask: If you had to choose a favorite job or project to date, what would it be? What did you like about it, specifically? (If they diplomatically say, "I liked them all," ask, "Well, if you absolutely had to pick one, what would it be?")

Listen for: Whether the sorts of things the person is describing are a match with the kinds of things he or she would most often be doing in the job you're filling.

Ask: Describe a project when you’ve had to coordinate a multitude of details. How did you approach the project?

Listen for: A detailed description; comfort in describing a specific process for managing details.

Ask: Have you had experience working in small or entrepreneurial environments before?

Listen for: Experience with family-owned small businesses or a trail of experiences working with small businesses. This question might also bring to light mismatches between your own understanding of what constitutes a small or entrepreneurial environment and what the candidate's understanding of those things includes.

Ask: Share an example of a time when you had to take the initiative, be a self-starter. How did that opportunity come about, and what did you have to do?

Listen for: How the candidate understands "taking the initiative"; whether they've got one or several examples where they contributed ideas or can demonstrate that they took a project from request to completion with the sort of supervision you're typically willing and able to provide.

Ask: Based on our discussion, how do you see the job and our company?

Listen for: Accurate interpretation rather than idealized or glamorized perception.

Based on this list, what other questions come to mind? Feel free to call or e-mail us for other suggestions; we're happy to share what's worked (or hasn't worked!) for us.

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