(Q) What type of question would your firm ask of a rental management candidate or one
of their references?

(A) “Brian, we start each of our executive search assignments with a day’s visit at our client’s
location. The primary purpose is to develop a complete position specification and detail document. This is a whole lot more than a job description. We outline: the job, desired qualifications, corporate culture, performance objectives and a lot more. This may seem like a digression from your question but you’d be amazed at how many senior level hiring efforts are launched without a decent outline of what is really being sought. We feel that both interview and reference questions should be driven by the position spec. Our premise is that the best indicator of future success is past performance. Therefore, many of our questions relate to situations in the candidate’s past which are relevant to the new position.”

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First Published December 1999