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How to create higher-performing teams: assess your candidates

By Chris Connell

4 Min Read

Part 2: Assess your candidates

Start with your benchmark

Without a clear understanding of who we are, we simply don't have clarity of who we need.

 

 

Part 1: Assess your team

If you missed our article on the 8 work actions needed for high-performing teams, you can revisit it here.

There, we provided a Cheat Sheet to help you map the priorities, strengths, and blind spots of your existing team. This critical step helps you identify the most important work action your team needs for a new hire to be successful.

 

Then, evaluate if someone matches that type of work


Once you’ve identified the type of work your team needs most, use this information as a hiring benchmark.

You can do this in the following ways:

  • During interviews, ask candidates about past experiences that reflect the desired behaviours.

  • Look for evidence that they exhibit the behaviours that contribute positively to your team dynamics.

  • Present candidates with hypothetical scenarios related to your team. Ask how they would respond or act in those situations. This helps you gauge their potential fit.

  • Reach out to candidates' references and inquire about their past behaviours in team settings.

  • Consider using behavioural assessments or personality tests to further evaluate candidates. These assessments can provide additional insights into a candidate's natural tendencies.

 

What questions do I ask?

We have compiled a list of specific interview questions you can use, right now.

These questions are based on the 8 work actions that define high-performing teams and will help you assess how well a candidate can do the tasks the team requires.

Grab the interview questions to make hiring easier:

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How do I evaluate candidates?

Interview questions will provide structure, but you still need to evaluate the responses to each unique question. To help, we have assembled a scoring key for you to fairly and objectively evaluate responses to each question.

Each work action has a unique scoring key. You can use the relevant table to score how well candidates respond to the interview questions.

Grab the scoring key to make hiring easier:

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