Motivation-based Interviewing: A Revolutionary Approach to Hiring the Best

by Carol Quinn

The good news is that when you compile a set of questions that work well, you can use them over and over again. Unless the job changes, the questions can be used for years. I’ve used the same set of questions to hire hospitality managers for two decades. So how do you get started writing your questions? First you must identify the skills that are required to do the job: the technical, soft, and core competencies. Remember, O-SAE questions are skill-specific. Without a functional knowledge of the required job skills, you can’t write O-SAE questions. Personally, I’m not a big fan of using job descriptions to compile a list of required skills. Depending how the job description is written—listing essential and nonessential job functions, ADA compliance, and so on—it can be challenging to derive what you need. I like to keep it simple.