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?

A couple of years ago I took a seminar that discussed hiring and retaining good employees. It really opened my eyes, and now that I'm in the process of searching for a new employee, I've been reviewing what I learned.

The biggest lesson… when you hire mediocre employees, you get mediocre results. So hire fantastic employees and you'll get fantastic results. Pretty basic, but somehow it was never part of my mindset.

Prior to the seminar I used to dread interviewing people, and spent very little time with them before making the decision to bring them on board. I used to think that the interview process was taking valuable time away from everything else I had on my plate, but I learned that the more time you spend with someone in advance, the more likely you are to see if they'll be a good fit.

The instructor, Ed Ryan, suggested spending anywhere from five to eight hours on the interview process. You might even consider having a potential employee work with you for a day (basically a working interview). This will give you a great opportunity to get a feel for their ability, work ethic, customer service, etc. He also suggested interviewing at least three to five employees to make sure you're choosing the "best of the best."

If you don't find the right person keep going until you do… don't settle.

What are your secrets for hiring the best employees?

At one of the SPREE sessions I attended last week, a retailer, wholesaler and mall developer took various questions from the audience.

One topic that came up was whether or not malls should extend their hours during the holiday shopping season to 18+ hours per day. The mall representative argued that he thinks it's in the best interest of the consumer to offer as many hours as possible. The retailer countered that it's hard to staff your store for that many hours and maintain profitability.

I think a happy medium may fall somewhere in between… say from 7:30AM to 10:30PM for the last two to three weeks of the season.

What do you think works best for your business?