The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
How Weird Questions Can Make Your Church Hires Way Better
Unconventional interview questions can reveal more about potential church staff members than their resumes ever could. Todd Rhodes explores how asking creative, even strange questions can lead to better hires by revealing personality, self-awareness, and cultural alignment.
• Zappos asks "How weird are you?" during interviews to evaluate cultural fit
• Boring interviews often result in hiring people who look good on paper but mismatch your team
• Smart questions reveal how candidates think, not just how they perform
• Effective quirky questions connect to your mission, culture, or pain points
• Churches typically hire for skills but fire for fit—interview should assess both
• Creative questions about collaboration help if your church thrives on teamwork
• Questions about handling failure reveal adaptability if your staff struggles with change
• Unconventional questions uncover emotional intelligence, humility, and teachability
If you're interested in learning more about how Chemistry Staffing can help with your church hiring needs, email podcast@chemistrystaffing.com. Share your favorite emotional intelligence interview question that has helped you make a great hire!
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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How weird are you? That's a weird question to start a podcast off with, right? What if I told you that maybe one of the most effective interview questions when you're interviewing for a new staff member at your church could be this how weird are you? Sounds a little ridiculous, right? But Zappos does it the big shoe company. During every one of their interviews, they say how weird are you? And it reveals, in some ways, more than a resume ever could. So stick around.
Speaker 1:Today I'm going to show you how asking creative, even sometimes strange, or even weird questions can lead the way to better hires for your church staff. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom. I hope you'll check us out at chemistrystaffingcom. Also, I am the host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, so I'm really excited that you're joining me here today. So today we're going to talk about the power of the unusual question and, if we're honest, most church interviews are pretty painfully predictive Tell me about your strengths, where do you see yourself in five years? Yada, yada. But Zappos, the shoe company, throws in questions like how weird are you? Now, why would they do that? It's really simple it's because they care really deeply about their culture fit, not just skills, not just calling. We talked about this with another company yesterday on the podcast. We're continuing that same theme today. But they're not looking just for skills, they're not looking just for calling. But here's what they're looking for and this is key Will this person thrive in our environment? Will they survive at Zappos?
Speaker 1:I think this is a great idea. I think churches your church could steal this idea. Maybe not the exact question, unless you want to, I'm sure you can, but steal the concept right. Ask something offbeat that reveals personality or self-awareness, alignment with who you are as a church. So I really believe that boring interviews a lot of times can equal bad hires. When you're interviewing somebody on your church team for your church team, when you only skim the surface, you risk hiring somebody who really looks good on paper. Maybe they've got the experience, maybe they've got the chops to do the job, because they've already done the job someplace else but and here's the kicker they could be a total mismatch for your team. So smarter churches are asking questions like this what's a failure you learn from and you would do it again? What book would you make every staff member read? This is a question you could ask a potential staff member. What question would you make every staff member read and why. What will that tell you? That's going to tell you a lot about them and a lot about what they value and really help you know whether or not they're going to be a good addition and fit in to your culture and your team.
Speaker 1:Here's another question what's something about church culture today that absolutely drives you nuts? That's a telling question. Now, it's a quirky question. Okay, it's not a boring question, it's out there. But those kind of questions they're going to pull out values and personality and fit in ways that tell me what you've been doing, Tell me what you like to do, tell me your hobbies, where do you want to be in five.
Speaker 1:These quirky type out there questions might seem a little weird. I love to ask off off, beat off base questions where somebody's going to be like I've never, either I've never been asked that in an interview or before or what. Why in the world are you asking me that? You want to see the goal. You want to see how the candidate thinks, not just how they perform, because the job interview, let's be honest, it's a performance right On your part and by their part, right. They're trying to say the right things. They're trying to act the way that they think you want them to act. So these kind of weird questions can really pull that out of them and you'll get to see their real personality and you'll get to see their eyes spark up when they give you some of these answers, right?
Speaker 1:Weird doesn't mean irrelevant, okay. Here's the trick. Creative doesn't mean random, okay. So don't say what's your favorite cereal. That's a weird question. That's also irrelevant, all right. Creative doesn't mean random, it means intentional.
Speaker 1:So ask questions that are going to connect back to your mission, connect back to your team culture, connect back to maybe a pain point that you have at your church, for example, if your church thrives on being collaborative among your team, among your staff, if you're a very collaborative staff, ask something like this I guess that's not really a question, but tell me about a time where you were wrong and somebody else saved the day. That again see how that goes back to the collaboration spirit. Tell me a time that you were wrong and somebody else saved the day. Somebody else saved your pot, if your staff struggles with change. Another question if your staff struggles with change, maybe you could say what's one change you initiated that failed and what did you learn from it? So these kinds of questions uncover again.
Speaker 1:We're talking this week about emotional intelligence, about humility, about teaching a teachable spirit and all of this information, man, this is gold when you're trying to hire the right church staff member. So you need to remember this interview for culture, not just for competency. Churches often hire for skills and fire for fit. Okay, let me say that again because it's really important and I see it all the time. Churches often hire for skills Can you do the job? Great, we'll hire you. Six months later, 18 months later, they're going to fire, not because the person wasn't competent with their skills, but because they're going to fire them because they were not a good fit for the team.
Speaker 1:So don't get fooled, don't take the bait, don't be fooled by somebody who can preach, lead worship or run VBS like a champ. You need to make sure that you ask questions to reveal if they're going to last and if they're going to love the team and if you're going to love them. That's my message for you today. Ask these kind of deep, human questions and relate them back, not just to be irrelevant, right, relate them back to what you need, what your cultures and these deep human questions that can help you find out the right person for your next role. Okay, if you're still asking the same interview questions you did five years ago, it might be time to shake things up just a little bit, because your church deserves more than just a good hire. You need the right hire, okay, and that's what we do at chemistry staffing. We do that all day, every day.
Speaker 1:I think we're doing about 70 searches right now all across the country with churches looking for staff members senior pastors, youth pastors, worship kids, executive pastors all different kinds of roles and if you need some help, man, we are here. We do this all day, every day. We tend to think that we're pretty good at it. So if there's any way that we can help you along your journey in hiring a staff member, we would love to be able to partner with you. You can reach out to me and just tell me what you're looking for. Maybe we can hop on a quick Zoom call and you can tell me a little bit more about what you're trying to hire, and I can tell you a little bit more about chemistry and just dive in and see if we might be might be make sense to partner together and work on this kingdom thing together. I would love to be able to do that. You can reach out to me anytime.
Speaker 1:Chem at podcast at chemistry staffing. Just drop me an email. Podcast at chemistry staffing. Also love your feedback on this. What's here's. Send me your answer to this. What's your favorite go-to kind of emotional intelligence interview question that you've used and that's really helped you to hire a really great person? I'd love to hear from you. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, thanks so much. Hope you have a great weekend. We'll be right back here for you on Monday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
