Potential Employee Interview Questions And Answers

Here are 4 things you must do to engage and retain your high potential employees:
☛ Equip your managers to surface critical engagement risks.
☛ Require high position to commit to the organization.
☛ Align High position and senior leader expectations for compelling high position career paths.
☛ Provide high-risk opportunities in a supportive environment.

Potential can be defined in many ways, few are given below:
☛ Capable of being but not yet in existence, latent or undeveloped, a potential problem, a substance with many potential uses.
☛ The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development or future success, an investment with a lot of potential, a singer who has the potential to become a major star.
☛ The possibility that something might happen or result from given conditions, a tense situation with the potential to turn into a riot, farming practices that increase the potential for the erosion of topsoil.

Equip your managers to surface critical engagement risks.
Example:
Many managers do not understand the vast range of reasons that can affect turnover risk. Train your managers on the importance of maintaining a regular, ongoing dialog with employees (and especially high-potential employees), so they can proactively identify and address those risks.

You require hi position to commit to the organization. Simply telling someone they are a High positioned may not be enough to engage and retain them. Establish a talent deal that provides them with a variety of special opportunities, benefits and commitments but expect organization-defined commitments or responsibilities from them in return.

You should align High positioned and senior leader expectations for compelling High position career paths. High position value fair, diverse and structured career paths, so a standard process to help facilitate their movement across the business may be warranted. Ensure senior leader buy-in to high potential development programs so they do not get derailed.

Potential employees need highly challenging development opportunities that allow them advance their career but these opportunities need to be carefully managed. Potential employees also need a supportive work environment to mitigate their risks and drive success.

Aspiration is the desire to take on responsibilities, challenges and rewards typically demonstrated by those in more senior roles.

Ability is a combination of innate characteristics and learned skills for potential employees.

Demonstration of aspiration:
Emily might proactively meet with her manager and ask to take on a new assignment that is more challenging than those she typically works on or one that requires more personal responsibility, accountability or decision making. The key is that Emily takes the initiative and identifies herself to her manager as someone ready and willing for more complex challenges.

Example:
Emily has a very easy-going personality that makes her a natural when it comes to dealing with customers. Over the years, she is augmented this innate characteristic with learned skills, so she has become adept at managing difficult conversations with customers. Emily is now able to handle customer complaints and difficulties in a calm, responsive manner and deliver exceptional customer service.

Example:
Emily is a high performer. She has been with her employer for two years and always goes out of her way to ensure customers are happy. Emily enjoys her work but she also has ambitions. She recently informed her manager that she wants to apply for a role in a different part of the company, one that will challenge her and help her develop further.

In essence high potential employees like what they do, want to do more, always go the extra mile and see a future for themselves in your organization.

By engaging potential employees because of their unique characteristics, keeping high-potential employees engaged is more important but also a bit more challenging. They can be easily disillusioned by poor management and a lack of opportunities for growth. And they can also more easily find employment elsewhere should they decide to jump ship.

High potential employees are proactive rather than reactive when it comes to career development and mapping out their path. They seek out opportunities and engage their manager and others in discussions about what is next. They understand that new skills and competencies must be obtained in order to reach the next level and they look for ways to expand their experience in order to prepare for future roles.

Instead of becoming pigeon holed as subject matter experts in one area or focusing on a specific skill, potential employees find ways to demonstrate their value and impact across the organization. Their openness to change, their ability to learn quickly and their willingness to teach and train others often leads to new leadership roles and opportunities.

Technical skills can only take you so far in the business world. At a certain point, it is the know-who rather than the know-how that sets high potentials apart. They are capable and confident when it comes to developing and maintaining relationships. They know how to network and understand that networks must be nurtured rather than used. They seek out mentors and advocates who can provide valuable support and speak positively on their behalf. They are aware of others, of their impact on others and take a genuine interest in getting to know people personally.

Not only do potentials know how to make friends, they know how to collaborate and work with people across and outside of their organizations. They utilize their flexibility and interpersonal skills to work effectively across disciplines. Instead of adopting an us versus them mentality, they focus on involving and communicating with the right people in order to meet goals and solve business problems. They are valued members of their work and project teams and are well liked by their colleagues.

While confident and self assured, potentials acknowledge that that they, like all of us, are works in progress. They are open to feedback and strive to apply it toward self improvement. In fact, they often seek out feedback from those around them in order to gain self awareness and further their development. They leverage mistakes and setbacks as learning opportunities and focus on applying lessons to the future rather than dwelling in the past.

Potentials earn the trust and respect of others by demonstrating high levels of consistency and professionalism. They can be counted on to keep their word and deliver results. They take their goals and responsibilities seriously without taking themselves too seriously.

Here are 5 traits of potential employees:
☛ They know the business.
☛ Others respect them.
☛ They are ambitious.
☛ They work well with others.
☛ They have guts.

Potential employees are the ones who have true expertise and keep learning. Their knowledge may be technical or it may be institutional but it is invaluable for the organization. More important, they understand how their activities, their sector and their realm of knowledge is related to the company's goals.

Your staff members, not just you, also have to appreciate how much your high-potentials know. It is not enough that your top people know their stuff. Everyone else has to know they know it.

Potential employees are not just career-minded, they are ambitious in a focused way. The best way to get a sense of this is to evaluate their commitment to career progression. Look for signs that they long to accumulate new responsibilities, new successes, additional knowledge and for better or worse, additional recognition.

Though your leaders need to be driven, they also must be able to form partnerships with others besides you. This attitude goes beyond amiability, it is a pragmatic, tactical skill that allows them to make better more informed decisions. Lone rangers may be creative and ambitious but they make lousy leaders.

Next generation of leaders must understand that no matter how much research they do, no matter how many cost-benefit analyses they conduct, no matter how many market surveys they complete, they will always be deciding under conditions of uncertainty. The information at hand will always be less than the information you wish you had. Leaders need to have the courage to take risks.