Episode 206: What to Ask in Every Job Interview (And What the Answers Tell You)

What does it actually look like to run a job interview that tells you whether someone is the right fit for your firm — before you make a decision you can't easily undo?

In this episode, Dani and Kristy break down the questions that go beyond the resume and what the answers actually reveal about a candidate, so you can walk into every interview with a clear process and walk out with the information you need to hire with confidence.

You'll learn:
 ✅ Why a 5-minute pre-screen call can save you hours in your hiring process
 ✅ The questions to ask at every stage — and what to listen for in the answers
 ✅ How to handle the salary conversation without derailing the process
 ✅ What a candidate's answer about leaving their last role actually tells you
 ✅ Why each role requires a different type of person — and how your questions should reflect that
 ✅ How to involve your team lead in the interview without overcomplicating it
 ✅ The remote work questions most firm owners skip — and why they matter

If you've ever walked out of an interview feeling confident about a candidate and then regretted the hire weeks later, this episode will change the way you approach your hiring process — and the questions you ask in it.

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PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:  

 1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here 

2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here 

3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

Transcript

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Welcome And What We Solve

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to The Wise Way, the show for accounting and bookkeeping firm owners who want more time, profit, and freedom in a business that can run without them. I'm Brett Ward, your host, and each week we deep dive into the real stories, proven strategies, and battle-tested tools from successful firm owners just like you. Our wise mentors want to share their journey of how they've scaled and systemized their way to freedom so you can too. If you're stuck in the grind or you're ready to scale smarter, this is your blueprint. Let's get into the episode.

Why Great Interviews Go Wrong

SPEAKER_01 0:51

And you know, it's it's a balance of between like following your gut, but following the the processes to make sure that you are making the right decisions. Um but yeah, so I'm sure everyone's sort of been in a in a situation where you've done an interview and you've you've come out going, wow, that was amazing. Um, and then you you go, I'm ready to give this person a job. And you do end up giving them the job straight away, and then about you know, three or four weeks later you regret it because you haven't done anything else. You've just gone off that one conversation with them, thinking that you know you've clicked really well, um, but then not realizing that they don't actually have the skills that you're looking for, or you've they've told you everything that you want to hear in that interview, but then when it comes to the actual job, they don't have the right attitude and the right motivation and and and all of that.

Pre-Screen Calls That Save Hours

SPEAKER_01 1:50

So um, yeah, so with the with the interview process, it's always good just before that, if you can have like a a pre-screening call. Um, and that's just where you it's like a five-minute conversation. You can do it over Zoom if you know if you are looking to hire someone offshore and it's a bit harder to to pick up the phone and call them, you can jump on a on a quick Zoom call and it doesn't have to be a full-on interview, but it's basically just making sure that they do have the right skills to know that if you if you should actually be proceeding or not with a full-on interview, because the interview process it can go for about an hour or so, depending on you know how how long it takes them to answer a certain question or or whatever it is. Um but yeah, with the pre-screening questions, things to I've got a little list. The very first one, where are you currently based? That's just good because if you're if you're hiring someone locally but they're they're based somewhere else, um obviously you want to make sure that they're in the right location. But it's also good to know because we've had situations where we've gone to hire someone and they have been in the current location, um, but then their plan is to actually move to a different country in in about three to four months. And that is a a true story. We did we did actually, I'm pretty sure that was for Jamie actually. Um couple of years ago we hired someone for him in in the Philippines, but yeah, three months later they were like, Oh, I'm moving to Canada. And they knew about this, but they just didn't disclose it. So asking that question is really important. The second one, do you have public practice experience? Obviously, if they if you're hiring someone in the accounting industry, you want to make sure that they've actually got that experience, not just the commercial side of things. Um and this is the sort of this is the part where you can sort of you can uh throw in a technical question in there and see if they can actually answer it. Uh, because they might say, Yes, I know how to do, you know, uh I don't know, income tax returns or something, and then you ask them specifically what they would do in a in a situation. And if they don't know how to answer that, that's a red flag, obviously, because it means that they're lying. Um good thing is uh you can still ask these questions again uh in the interview process uh just to see if things change as well. Um they might say one thing to you during the pre-screening stage and then in the interview, they may change it. Um and that's something that you want to look out for because the last thing you want is for there to be misalignment, basically. That's actually why we uh it with our wise talent process, we get them to do um a pre-history form first, because what we're doing is when they fill out that form and we do the interview stage, we're actually cross-referencing and just making sure that what they've said, what they've written down is the same thing that they tell us in the interview. Um, so yeah, when you do these pre-screening questions, it's a good it again, it's it's good to sort of just make sure that things are aligning.

Salary Expectations And Market Reality

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Um some uh like I've spoken to clients and some clients are uh feel a bit uncomfortable asking what the salary range is, like what they would want there like basically asking the candidate, you know, what's your salary expectation? Um we always say make sure you ask it, because you don't the last thing you want is to get into the interview, you've you've spent an hour and then you've you've done this whole process and then you find out that what they're expecting is completely different to what you can actually offer them.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yes, and it's very frustrating when you have a really good interview and then you get to very unrealistic expectations and you have to then negotiate or withdraw. Um, it is yeah, it is frustrating, which is in part why the career history form for me is so important of what salary are you looking for? Does that match to the position advertised? Does that match to my expected budget? And then that question, no one likes talking about money generally. It's it is difficult, but it is a good test of the um the openness of the team member as well. And you know, you don't want to waste everyone's time, but it is good to ask it later in the interview as well. If you ask it too soon, you haven't built that relationship and rapport, so you're not necessarily gonna get a genuine answer. Um, but it is, yeah, it is important to ensure that you cover that.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

And also something to note is you don't want to change the salary in the hiring process. And I know people might be like, why would you do that? But I've had clients who have who've basically said, yes, let's offer, like we're gonna do a salary range of this particular amount. And then once they've found someone and they're about to offer them the position, they've actually changed it and and made it lower. Um don't do that because the candidate will will just we've had so many people say no to the to the job offer because they've changed the the salary expectation. Um and that's not fair on anyone. Like it this is why you do your capacity planner um to make sure that you you know you know how much you can offer, you know, you do all that first, figure out what you can actually offer, and then stick to it, because the the last thing you want is to find someone amazing, uh and then you say, Oh, actually, I can't actually offer you this amount, and then you've basically just you've wasted the candidates' time, you've wasted your own time. Um so yeah, definitely make sure that you you stick to the salary that you're you've originally said. Make sure that you um you do your research on on the actual salary, like the market, and we can help you with that as well, because we have a salary guide. Um, if anyone needs it or ones that we can we can definitely send it across to you. Um that gets updated every year, but it's it's good to just make sure that you are staying competitive. You don't want to throw money at the problem. We've had clients who have basically just gone above and beyond and just gone really, really high with the salary because they're looking for someone, they're desperately looking for someone, uh, but you know, they're they've not considered uh the person's experience and and all of that side of things. So yeah, just make sure that you are actually following following a salary guide. Um

From Ad Hoc Hiring To Delegation

SPEAKER_01 8:44

But Chrissy, I just wanted to sort of ask well it's it's sort of a two-part quick question. The first part is what was your your, I guess, interview process like before? And for everyone, this isn't a wise talent sales call, this is just because Chrissy has used us before. Um, but yeah, what was your interview process like before and now?

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Pretty loosey-goosey. Um, it probably would have included when can you start? And do you want the job? Uh, there wasn't really a lot of cover of experience because I didn't really know, you know, a little bit of have you worked, you know, for anyone in the industry before, but not a lot of structure to it. It was pretty basic and evident in the people that I hired that they were not aligned because I did not put thought into the process. In fact, the first couple of people were recommendations from colleagues or referrals from colleagues because I didn't have a hiring or interview process. Um, yeah, it was it was pretty average. And now it's like a well-oiled machine. My production manager handles the interviews now for our production team, which has just been beautiful. I haven't needed to attend every interview because my calendar is a bit squishy at times. And so, you know, it's also that thing of being responsive to candidates, ensuring that the right person is conducting the interview, but it doesn't always have to be the firm owner once once you get into that position. Um yeah, but it yeah, there was there was no structure, Danny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

But that's a good point though, with like the who's actually joining the interview. So what we recommend is if you can get the person who's actually going to be managing the person that you're hiring, if they can join the interview, that's really important because they can sort of give their opinion as well. You don't want, you know, three or four different people in the interview. Um, especially if it's over Zoom, you can just record it and send the recording to other people. Um, but yeah, just making sure that at least that, you know, if you're hiring a senior accountant, make sure the senior production manager is there.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Because what on that point, because it's really important that they have a good working relationship. And I think sometimes when they don't meet who the direct report will be in the interview, it can already start to create a bit of a bypass. And, you know, you want to ensure that there is that respect of the person that they will be reporting to on a daily basis and that they feel comfortable with them. And yeah, I've seen a real shift in candidates from being interviewed by our production manager. It does also help our production manager is based in the Philippines, and we've been primarily um growing our production team, so it's worked really well for Clarice to have that um, you know, that relationship and and understand the nuances in the interview. So yeah, it's good. And you know, again, having a structured interview process has given her the confidence, and you know, it's about micro-training and empowering your people. If I just told Clarice to go and find me someone and ask them some questions to see if she liked them, she'd be a basket of nerves, she'd be terrified because it's not something she's had to do before. So having a clear guide for her to follow has been really beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, that's right. And

Building Rapport Before Tough Questions

SPEAKER_01 12:28

um, speaking about the guide, so some of the questions that we like to ask, or the structure of that is basically the very first thing, make sure you tell the candidate about your firm and about the role, um, give them a bit of insight into what's going to go on there because the last thing you want is to jump into an interview, um, you know, you say thanks for joining me, and then you basically just go into everything. Um, like Christy mentioned earlier, building that rapport. So if you give them a bit of insight, um, yeah, it sort of starts to build that connection bit by bit.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

The thing I like about it as well is when we discuss a bit about our type of clients we work with, the type of services we offer, the type of tech stack we have, it then helps the candidate feel a bit more comfortable and confident when they answer the questions about their current and previous role. They'll touch on the systems and softwares or clients that we've already mentioned. Instead of they might just have a standard blanket answer and it doesn't cover all the softwares that you use or the type of clients, and you might think, oh, they're not going to work out. But you're kind of sowing the seed for them, giving them the opportunity to see, oh, yep, I've worked with construction clients or I've done end-to-end or I've done CFO or I haven't done that. So it just helps them formulate their answer for their current and previous experience, and you can dig a little bit deeper as well if they don't cover a response to what you've said in the introduction. And, you know, again, I've had a team member choose us because of the hiring process. Danny helped me create a great video for our job ad, and then just the passion in which I can speak about my business and my team in the interview helped him decide to choose us over another business that was offering to pay him more. So, you know, it's a win-win.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, and some questions to ask that are not necessarily important, but it's just good to know is um asking about the software, you know, what kind of software experience do they have? Um obviously, if you if you use zero but they've never used zero before, that shouldn't deter you from hiring them because especially if they are very tech-savvy and they they're very like they're a fast learner, they can pick up on that. But just asking that sort of question sort of gives them, it gives you a bit of an insight of to what software knowledge they do have. Um but yeah, generally with the interview process, what we like to do is we start with their second most recent

Job History Questions And Red Flags

SPEAKER_01 15:12

job. Um we go through a bunch of questions about uh yeah, the what they're what they do there, um, uh, you know, their uh I guess the what are their successes, what what mistakes did they make? But something to look out for when you ask them, you know, can you tell me about a mistake that you made in the role? If they give you a really generic answer, or if they say, I've never done a mistake and they're thinking big mistake, you can just say to them, look, just a small mistake that you made. Um, but also ask them, how did you actually resolve that? Uh because that will sort of give you context. Are they just sort of making it up? Or are did they actually do this mistake and did they uh learn from their mistake as well? Um, but ask them questions about their their relationship with their manager as well. You know, how do they like to be managed by their manager? Was their manager, you know, did they have uh a good relationship, was their communication skills, all that side of things as well. Um and then one of the questions obviously everyone asks, you know, what's your reason for leaving your job? But a question to ask after that is have you actually spoken to your manager or if it's a past job, you know, did you speak to your manager before you left? Um if they say no, that's it's it's a red flag because you want to make sure that if they're ever gonna leave your job, they're not just gonna just hand in their resignation. Um you want to make sure that if there's an issue, they're actually gonna talk to you about it first and see if there is a way that you can um fix it somehow rather than them just you know, basically saying, I'm done. Um yeah, so that's always a good question to ask. But yeah, so if you start with their second most recent job, you move on to their most recent job, and then you start asking them questions about um, I guess, you know, how they would handle different situations. So, you know, if they if they were to start a new job but they're not sure what to do with a particular task, how would they go about it? Um and then, you know, you go on from there to basically, especially if it's like a work from home position, make sure you ask them, do you have a private office where you know you're

Remote Work Setup And Focus

SPEAKER_01 17:38

not going to be disturbed? Yeah, how do you make how do you handle working from home if you're going to be um, you know, if there's lots of distractions and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Um I really like to ask, my business is completely remote. So whether it's onshore or offshore, it's it's the question around do you have a separate place for working or are you in a shared space? Are you sitting in the lounge room and you've got people at home all day? Because you want to ensure that the team member can have um, you know, meetings, internal meetings. And if you have them doing any client-facing, obviously that's really important that they can have a professional client-facing meeting. I interviewed a candidate once, an onshore team member, who um was in the middle of house renovations and said she'd just be set up at the dining table all day and that was fine. And so, no, that's not fine. It's even it comes down to, you know, workplace health and safety. It's not great to be sitting at your dining table eight hours a day, five days a week. So it's it's those little things. It's, you know, is the person being genuine and honest in honouring the role and their commitment to it? Are they gonna look after themselves to be their best to work for you in a focused way, or are they gonna be distracted? We've had team members who have been in a room, a shared room, with their partner who also works from home, and then it's you know, they have a lot of meetings during the day. So it's like, how are you gonna meet with the team and do all of that? It's it's very challenging. So just want to it's just getting that little bit of information, and even the the one that makes me giggle the most, the answers you get is have you considered starting a business? Um the yeses that you get to that are really surprising. I've I've had a couple of onshore people talk about, you know, considering starting their own um bookkeeping business before. It's like, whoo, red flag, hi. But even team members who, you know, their family has a restaurant and they're they work there, but it won't impact their work hours. I don't know how that does it. Or, you know, they wanted to start up a a retail, um, one person wanted to make jewellery and sell it online. It's like, I don't know how that's gonna work with the role that you have. So it's it's it's not about catching people out, but it's again, this comes down to the relationship and rapport that you build with them in the interview, that they feel comfortable enough to be really honest, and that's where you look for the clues of maybe not a long-term fit.

Wrap-Up And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Wise Way. If today's episode sparked an idea or helped you see things differently, please don't forget to leave us a review. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast on your favourite platform yet, please go ahead and do that as well. Let's continue the conversation here through YouTube or any other social platforms that you can find us on. And just remember, if you're not a subscriber of our weekly Friday tip newsletter, you can get that to your inbox every week going forward. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, you don't have to do it alone. Let's build a business that works for you the wise way. We'll see you in the next episode.