I had 3 conversations about interviewing over the last couple weeks with friends. What do you hire for? How do you sort reality from padding? Personally, I am a big fan of the book Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again, which focuses on how to bring out someone’s drive and the Predictive Index as both a hiring and development tool.

I had not thought about the importance of the personal angle, as put forth by The Interview Question You Should Always Ask:

What do you do in your spare time?

The premise is that if you are passionate about your trade outside the workplace, it will translate into the workplace. His example being the airline pilot who took his gliding license as a kid, built model airplanes and in his spare time volunteered to improve airline safety.

Interesting thought. Worth pondering what great salespeople or leaders do in their spare time. What does Steve Jobs do in his spare time?

I have started to ask this question, attempting to correlate personal life to business success while also watching for the red flag, the person without an answer.