Kristan Vingrys has a great post, A question I have found useful when interviewing candidates. His question:
You are allocated a training budget, what is the first course, conference or workshop you would attend?
This is an excellent question to see if people are keeping up with thinking about what they want to learn. I would follow up with “Why?” The one concern I have is that there are some great candidate who've been beaten unto thinking they don't “deserve” training. They might not have an idea. (Even when my management refused me training, I always knew about some course I wanted to take.)
I like this question. It is similar to the one I ask “What was the last thing you were curious about and spent time learning about?” Basically my theory is that people who want to learn are good for the team. Nothing is worse than trying to advance a new idea that gets squashed because those involved could care less about learning the value the idea does or doesn’t have.
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It’s a great question – assuming that you are prepared to actually *do* provide a training budget.