I know everyone who interviews has a particular question that's their favorite… maybe it's simple, or maybe it's detailed, but whatever it is, you always ask it.

Before interviewing anyone, I make a list of the traits that I need the potential employee to have (i.e., positive attitude, strong communication skills, good with people, good at problem solving, etc.), and from that list I develop the questions to tap into the skill set that I'm looking for.

Ed Ryan (hey, I learned a great deal from his seminar!) says that rather than asking a potential employee how they might handle a situation in the future, you should ask about how they've dealt with past situations.

Why? Because research shows that past performance is an excellent indicator of future performance.

For example, to find out how your prospective employee might handle a difficult customer you could say, "Can you tell me about a time when you had to handle a difficult customer or colleague? What was the situation, and how did you resolve it?"

By asking that question you can assess how the candidate will deal with a difficult customer in the future, and get an understanding of what they might do to resolve the problem.

What's your favorite interview question?