What is a good interview question/technique to pick out the "Excuses Elly's" beforehand?

Question

There's one in every office, they perform spectacular in the interview, have an impressive resume, but when it comes to real work, they suddenly have a billion excuses why they can't produce: the r&d won't give me the necessary info, marketing department's not cooperating, they didn't give me blah blah blah, it's their fault, their fault, their fault. Short of a personality test, what are some good questions/techniques that help you weed out these excuses people during the interview process?

Answer 1

first of all....are you calling all of their former employees to ask about previous preformance? Second, are you, as an employer bringing enough training and mentoring to the program? If not, the company needs to evaluate how to add more training....my company provides training on various topics every single Thursday morning. Pretty awesome for a company of less than 30.
Third, test different selling scenarios during the interview....maybe do a round of interviews and then out of the top five candidates call them back and set up a "selling scenario"

Answer 2

Hmm, you could just up and ask them "Are you the Excuses Elly?" No, that wouldn't work. Also, while I'm at it, please remove the obvious questions from your tests. Nobody is going to mark "Yes" to "Do you enjoy stealing money out of the cash drawer?" This is why personality tests tend to be crap. The answers are too simple.

Instead, pay attention. First, pay attention to the "excuses Ellys" that you have hired in the past. Often, they have something in common, it may be something that looks good to you in the interview, but which doesn't work later on.

Remeber, you're looking for things they have in common, not problems they have in common.

I'm not a hiring person, but I've dated "excuses Ellies" before. Mine tend to have a no-nonesense, black/white approach to life, a twinkle in their eyes, and they describe their family life as an absolute mess. They also tend to keep a lot of cats and dogs around the house.

Is everyone that keeps pets a disaster? Does everyone with a horrible family life turn into an on-the job waste of money? Certainly not! However, these may be signs.

Ask people about their family, their home, their living situation, their school experience. Eventually, they may get the impression that you're trying to see if something is wrong with them. You are, but these are all reasonable questions, and do not require any excuses, unless you're used to giving an excuse for everything.

Answer 3

Ask what problem they had and how did they solve it in their last job. Also you can ask if there was a specific technique, operating procedure, or program they created or implemented in their last position.

Answer 4

Do you make excuses or solve problems?