If you think back to your last job interview, preparation included considering the questions you’d be asked. Skills and experience would be part of the discussion and you may have thought about common job scenarios and the strategies to apply for the best outcome.
Was there a time during the interview that were you caught off guard by questions that didn’t apply to the job? Did your interviewer lean in and pay more attention to your answers to these questions? He or she was interested in getting a true reaction and response instead of a rehearsed answer.
When you have unexpected or targeted ISP interview questions, you reveal candidate traits that may not surface, such as::

• Their true thinking process
• Their ability to learn
• Are they agile and flexible?
• Shows their level of creativity
• May indicate whether they are a cultural fit
• Whether they take ownership of their job

As an ISP, FISP or WISP owner-operator, it’s important to discover as much as you can during the interview process because you require someone who wants to own their responsibilities and grow with your organization. (Did you miss our article about why job ownership in your staff is important? Catch up now.)
Here are interview questions that can help you discover more about promising job candidates:

ISP Interview Questions About the Thinking Process

• What would you do in the event of a zombie apocalypse?
• Tell me something that is true and that almost no one agrees with you on.
• A hammer and nail costs $1.10 and the hammer costs $1.00 more than the nail. What is the cost of the nail? (ANSWER: 5-cents)

Ability to Learn

• Tell me about a failure. (A seasoned pro will also tell you what they learned from the experience.)
• Give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically difficult problem.

Agility and Flexibility

• What didn’t you have a chance to put on your resume?
• Can you describe a time when you almost gave up, how you felt about that and what you did instead of giving up?

Creativity

• How would you describe yourself in one word?
• On a scale of one to 10, how weird are you?
• What’s your superpower or spirit animal?

Fit

• What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?
• If I were to ask people who know you to describe you, what three things would I hear the most?
• What was the last Halloween costume that you wore?
• How old were you when you had your first paying job?

Candidate’s ability to own their job

• Tell me about one of your most difficult challenges and what you did to solve it.
• Can you tell me the story of your prior success, challenges and major responsibilities?
• If we’re sitting here a year from now and celebrating 12-months of success, what did we achieve together?

Make your next hire a success with ISP interview questions that demonstrate whether they have the traits to expand with your business and take ownership of their responsibilities. And, when you’re ready to choose a billing and automation system that can scale with you, choose the one that knows about business and positions your ISP for true success.

Thank you to Raw Pixel of Unsplash.com for providing the photo for this article.