Conducting employment interviews is hard. There are questions you can’t ask and areas you must avoid. While basic human resource training covers these issues, what isn’t addressed in general business interviewing instruction are questions that help guide a successful interview for a call center manager. Here are the top twelve call center manager interview questions from industry expert Mark Hansen: 1) In this position you will need deliver feedback that is both good and sometimes not so good to people who were your peers. How do you plan to be able to give such feedback? 2) This position requires flexibility in shifts. How do you plan to maintain a good work-life balance? 3) What is the difference between a manager and a leader? 4) What are the key values of a leader, and how will you demonstrate them? 5) In general how do you make decisions? 6) What steps would you take to ensure your team members feel valued? 7) Give an example of a risk you decided to take. Why did you choose to pursue it? 8) What is an example of a creative solution to an unexpected situation when your leadership skills were needed? 9) In what ways have you acted as a mentor to a coworker? 10) How would you keep each member of your team involved and motivated? 11) What are your past faults as a leader? 12) What is an example of how you handled a situation where you and a coworker did not agree? There are two main intents of these dozen queries. The first is to get candidates talking by asking open-ended questions (as opposed to close-ended questions that solicit a yes or no response or a short answer). The second is to cause them to dive into introspection by avoiding standard queries that produce pat answers. As you ask these questions, take careful notes of what each candidate says and the manner in which it’s communicated. The goal is to uncover candidates who react quickly to unexpected situations and can do so with professionalism and pose. These are the people you want running your call center. Having successful call center managers starts with careful selection, which hinges on asking them the right questions. These twelve questions have garnered proven results and will get you started right. Janet Livingston is the president of Call Center Sales Pro, a premier sales and marketing service provider and consultancy that provides custom training solutions for all levels of staff in the call center and telephone answering service industry. Contact Janet at contactus@callcenter-salespro.com or 800-901-7706 to learn more about arranging specific training for your organization.Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer from Southwest Michigan.