A founder has been hiring new employees for many years. With one question, she tests whether applicants can treat others with respect. This, she explains, is important for a positive work environment.
Which founder is it? Elizabeth Gore founded the platform Hello Alice many years ago, which helps businesses with financing. To date, the company is said to have assisted 1.5 million entrepreneurs and contributed 52 million dollars in grants. She herself states that she has hired hundreds of people in the last 7 years.
The question she asks most often, she explained to the English-language magazine CNBC.com, is as follows:
What do you think we are doing wrong in our company?
A test of whether the applicant can be respectful
Why does she ask this question? For Gore, it is especially important how the potential candidates respond to this question. It matters not only what they answer but also how they answer. “How you give the answer is just as important as what you say,” she says.
The question of what her company does “wrong” is a way to find out whether an applicant has actively considered problem-solving and how to advance the company they have applied to.
This way, it can also be determined how well-prepared they are and what kind of work ethic they possess. “It shows that they have done their homework,” by researching the company they theoretically want to work for, says Elizabeth Gore.
For the founder, this question is also a way to assess a candidate’s ability to be respectful. Because one could also respond to the company in a very condescending manner. Instead, she seeks people who can also formulate constructive criticism in a friendlier way, so that it does not come across as patronizing but rather as equal. In this way, a positive work environment would also be created.
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