Recruiting the right people for your team isn't just about skills and experience. It's about ensuring they align with your company culture and can collaborate effectively with others.
Hiring toxic employees can instantly ruin your culture, whether they are negative, blaming, narcissistic or lack accountability, if you hire even one of them, the damage to a company can be incalculable. With an abundance of resources to help potential applicants hone their answers and anticipate interview questions, it can be a challenge to identify a potentially toxic employee.
So how do you spot potential red flags during interviews?
Here are 5 interview questions that may help.
1. Can you describe a time when you disagreed with a coworker? How did you handle it?
What to listen for:
Respect, open communication, and a collaborative mindset.
Red flag:
Defensiveness, blame-shifting, or an inability to compromise.
2. Tell me about a time you made a mistake. How did you handle it?
What to listen for:
Accountability and the ability to learn from their errors.
Red flag:
Blaming others, the environment or refusing to admit any mistakes.
3. What do you do when you're asked to step outside your job description?
What to listen for:
Willingness to be a team player and contribute to broader goals.
Red flag:
Strict adherence to roles, rules or a refusal to help others.
4. How do you handle working with someone you don’t get along with?
What to listen for:
Professionalism and the ability to work through personal feelings.
Red flag:
Negative comments about past colleagues, employers or an inability to collaborate.
5. What motivates you when dealing with repetitive tasks?
What to listen for:
Self-motivation and finding value in all aspects of the job.
Red flag:
Complaints about "boring" work or needing constant external motivation or challenges.
These questions are conversation starters, designed to reveal how candidates think, act, and respond in various situations because toxic behaviours can sneak in, often masquerading as competence or ambition.
When using the questions you might also take into consideration the following:
- Non-verbal signals such as body language and tone of voice. Things to watch out for can include lack of eye contact, crossed arms and forced smiles.
- Use follow-up questions to gain deeper clarity and understanding, if they are evading an answer, ask the question again or in a different way until you are satisfied they have answered.
- Consider the candidate's career level and experience when evaluating their responses, more experienced applicants can provide practiced answers they know an interviewer wants to hear.
- Focus on overall consistency in answers rather than taking statements in isolation.
If you're hiring, why not ask us about Job Profile? Job Profile is an easy to use and cost effective psychometric tool that provides assesses the suitability and talents of candidates, helping many of our clients over the years to make good hiring decisions. Call 1300 585 383.