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My experience has been with both verbal and non-verbal cues. Their excitment about the opportunity and/or the company, body language, posture, smiling when they discuss their experience, etc. Do they ask questions about you and your experiences, do they seem interested? Those are the types of things to look for.

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Basically, the best way to assess prospective employee motivation is to determine the individuals value system. There are numerous ways to glean that information, but I always like to ask the following questions:

Why did you choose a Development/Sales/Marketing etc. career?
What do you enjoy the most/least about your field?
If you had to choose another career field what would it be and why?
What would you consider to be an ideal work environment?
Who had the greatest impact in your professional career and why?

Keep in mind that the response will be what the prospect believes to be “correct” answer. Your job is to identify the value system from the answers that you are given. Typically, it is not a good idea to lead with questions that have a yes/no answer. Get the candidate talking! The more they tell you, the greater to opportunity to parse out the motivation behind their responses.

If a prospect repeatedly mentions learning new things, improving skills and mentoring others in their responses, then Knowledge is a value. That type of employee can be motivated by the prospect of continuous training, working on larger, more difficult projects and the potential to lead a team.

Everyone is motivated by something. The challenge is to determine what that something is and to utilize that knowledge in a way that keeps the employee productive and happy. Generally speaking, people want to have a positive impact on their team, have their efforts recognized and be rewarded for a job well done.

To suggest a more lateral consideration: many people — especially when there is a high unemployment rate — aren’t particularly motivated to work specifically for your company, they just need a job. It doesn’t mean they won’t do a good job, or that they don’t WANT to be excited by their job…
Instead (or, in addition), determine how much energy they put into their profession when they don’t have to: do they read trade publications, attend conferences, and keep up with the latest/best practices in your industry? Otherwise you might be asking them to enthusiastically lie in order to hear “I’m so excited by Acme Widgets, it makes me tingle.” so you can check it off your list. 

Links:

• http://www.HRRevelations.com

While you certainly want to see that a prospective applicant cares about your company, recognize that they can’t possibly learn enough about it to be motivated to work for you beyond the simple fact of getting a job that they think they’ll enjoy.

Therefore, there are two key things to look for. The first is passion. You want to see that the person is passionate about something, preferably something job related. That’s not a requirement though; mostly, you need to know that given an opportunity to become engaged, this is a person who will tend to engage.

Second, find out how motivated they were on previous projects. Ask them to describe what they’ve done. Let them talk; only ask questions when you need to keep them going. You want them to paint a picture. Does that describe the person you’re looking for?

For more details, see the articles below.

-Steve Balzac
“The Business Sensei”

Links:

• http://www.7stepsahead.com
• http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2008/03/10/focus2-Building-a-talent-tea…
• http://www.wbjournal.com/article.php?RF_ITEM[]=article$0@40804;Article&Type…

You can also generally observe from their behaviour at the interview, the level of enthusiasm, for instance, how motivated they are likely to be.

However, at the end of the day, until someone has worked for you for at least 30 days, you really won’t know. It’s a crap shoot in the end. Even the behavioural tests don’t always get it right.

Hi Brian,

Just ask the prospective employee:
“Why should I hire you?”
and “What would be your added value to this company”.

If well motivated, you will get some amazing answers.

I used this “trick” when hiring people and this proved to be very effective. Q is also, IF they have the motivation that is needed, how are you sure that it is a keeper, not a loser…

Cheers
Frank

Introduce a subject related to the position and/or industry and have a conversation, not simply an interview. Cartwheel by including strategic questions or scenarios to get at what you need in order to gauge your candidate.

The hiring process is a two-way street, a prelude to win-win partnerships. Meting out a battery of tests and tools may work for some, but unless a candidate is able to put you through the same measurements, you run the risk of alienating strong and dynamic prospects.

Hi Brian,

Their level of engagement during the interview is a good indication of whether they will be motivated and productive employees.

Did they take the time to learn about your company and/or the position before the interview? Ask them to describe for you how their experience or skills complement your company’s strategic plan or fit in with your company culture. Not only does this demonstrate the interest they’ve taken in your organization, but it also gives great insight into how they think and process information. Any blank expressions or way off base answers might be cause for concern.

I probably wouldn’t recommend scheduling interviews for odd hours or weekends for the purpose of seeing how flexible a candidate is, but there are other more subtle ways of accomplishing the same thing. For example, if you have a good feeling about the candidate, ask them if they’re available for another 15-30 minutes to meet another manager or take a tour of the building. Most people with a genuine interest in the position will be enthusiastic about the opportunity. If they have a legitimate reason for not being able to stick around for another 30 minutes, try scheduling another time for them to come back in. What’s their reaction to this request? Are they gracious for the offer? Do they seem hesitant to commit? Is it clear that your request is inconveniencing them?

Most interviews that I’ve participated in (from both sides) seem to share a number of similar questions, making it easy for a candidate to rehearse their answers and provide exactly what you are hoping to hear from them. I can think of a few truly awful employees that were absolutely brilliant during their interviews, mostly because they knew exactly how to answer the questions, and appeared quite polished in their delivery. Had some unique and complex questions been asked in place of the “usual” list, they might not have been hired.

Excellent discussion topic Brian!

Regards,

Carrie

I suggest using a Behavioral-Event interview process. We’re all experts at fielding hypothetical questions like “what would you do if…” The question to ask is to “recall a time when you had to deal with…” Develop your list of questions based on real-world conditions at your firm. Ask them take their time answering and to be specific in their answers. If they have shown motivation for these in the past, they most probably will in the future.

Herb Kessner, Ph.D also suggests these experts on this topic:

• Pam Porath
• Denise Codgen
• Bob Furlong

Hi Brian - you have a host of great answers here. All I can add is I think you are trying the screen the actors ( those who can put on a convincing reveal their true selves latter on in the heat of battle ), from those who are genuinely motivated, but may not perform as well.

I’ll remove those who don’t even bother doing basic research for the interview ( thus excluding the arrogant and lazy ) and confine ourselves to the scenario where everything being equal a decision needs to be made.

I am also guessing that motivation desired is one that promotes the company and the team as opposed to that focusing only on oneself.

Here are a few guidelines:
Types of Questions: This has been addressed here already, but ensure you have the questions on how they have dealt with both difficult and delicate situations in the 1st person. So use situational based questioning

Me versus’s We: During the interview guage whether answers to questions how heavily answers are based on self interest as oppossed to serving the needs of the team. Actors usually highly polar placing undue emphasis on either their interest OR placing all emphasis on the team (watch the latter)

Non Verbal / Visual Queues: I dispense with trying to outline picking out the truth from a lie, but when someone is talking about how they have dealt with a situation look as to whether there eyes are looking up, up and around or they are looking down. Research and experience discounts those who when talking about feelings or drives ( ie motivation ) look up or up and around, as this tends to indicate they are fabricating the story ( denoted by those who look down during pauses ). Take note of the tone of voice ( should be deep or natural rather than high ). Finally (this is tricky) check the breathing. If you note short sharp breaths ( which is what you are looking for ), rather then slow, deep breaths then this is a good sign. In the real world you’ll never see all of these so use the 3 out of 4 rule.

Can you guage the motivation: Often people who are genuinely motivated often let slip what drives them - check this for plausibility and consistency with their answers.

As with picking stocks you’ll never get a board lit up highlighting a 100% positive response on all fronts, so pick the candidate with the most green lights in these categories.

… and as always, this note that this remains as much of an art as a science!

i ask the prospect what they would do if they stumbled over a lottery ticket and suddenly won us$64 million, tax free. this gives you a clear window into where the prospect’s true interests and motivations lie. if you are hiring someone for a sales position, the best candidates are those that talk about what they will buy with the money. if hiring for customer service, the best candiates frequently begin by saying they would give a certain amount to charity or to their family. the better managerial candidates usually say something about a business or other venture that they would start. if they don’t know what they would do with the money, they are probably not motivated enough to do more than the minimum.

Interview, may be for 1 / 2 hrs can not really judge a prospective employee completely. Many times we may have completely different opinion about an individual before and during interview and when we work with him, we come to know that our opinions can be wrong.
Human being is complex thing and every day we may see completely different aspect of an individual. Motivation is driven by a vigor to make change, level of satisfaction with the present level, support available, past experiences etc. Environment plays an important role in defining motivation. It may come from reward, fear to some extent.

Bill Gammell

Good luck!