How to Differentiate a Good Interviewee vs. A Good Employee

With so much competition, how do you identify top talent?  Depending on whom you ask, making the wrong hiring decision can cripple a business.  How do you tell the difference between someone who is good at interviewing and someone who is good at their job?

Ask specific questions that quantify accomplishments:

-Asking a recent grad to recite their GPA.

-Asking a top salesperson the largest deal they closed in revenue.

-Asking an athlete their team's best overall record.

Competitive people remember these types of things in great detail.  A good interviewer might say something like “there were so many” or “it is hard to select one” and speak in broad strokes. A good employee will know the specifics because they are proud of what they have accomplished and can usually talk in explicit detail.  Usually, it is because they impacted the result and actually did the work.  Think about how you would answer any of those questions.  Can you be specific?

Another excellent question:

Winning and losing are two very powerful emotions, which one affects you more?

A loss sticks with a winner and drives them to never have that feeling again.  Winners still feel that pain and never want to experience it again.  Winning is what is supposed to happen.  Ask any good employee and they will be able to tell you in detail their biggest loss with much more passion than their biggest win.  

Before you make the official offer, make sure that your potential hire can explain in detail some of their wins while also making you feel the pain of their biggest loss.