text: what is a good interview question/technique to pick out the "excuses elly's" beforehand? 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? 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"