According to NY Times, here are three principles that can help you hire the right person:

1) Be creative.
Every candidate will be prepared for commonplace interview questions. Find new ways to truly understand how a person thinks.

2) Be challenging.
Put the candidate in situations where they are more likely to show their true selves.

3) Allow your employees to help.
You are not the only person who is going to have to work with this candidate. There is likely already a team of employees you trust that will have to interact with him or her every day. Their opinion should matter. Get

4) Away From Your Desk
You’ll have a much better sense of your candidate if you get them out from behind a desk and watch how they behave. As you’re sizing up job candidates, there are two key qualities to check for:

5) Is the person genuinely interested in the work of the organization?
Do they treat people as equals, regardless of their title?
If you take them out of the office or conference room to see how they interact with others, you’ll get a better sense of their personality.

6) Take Them On a Tour
Stay in the building and show the candidates around your company, and maybe introduce them to some colleagues.Things to pay attention to:

7) Are they asking questions about what everybody does and how things work?
Are they curious?
Do they treat everyone they meet with respect, and show interest in what they do? Share A Meal
Take a candidate out for lunch or dinner. Going to a restaurant will reveal all sorts of clues about someone. For many leaders, this is the most important part of the interview process.

The key is to watch whether the candidate is considerate of others — an essential quality of effective team players.

Things to pay attention to:

Are they polite to everyone who is serving them?
Do they look people in the eye (a sign of respect)?
Are they irritated or flustered by problems?
Can they keep a conversation going, with smart questions?
Do they barrel through the restaurant, or let others go first? Throw Some Curveballs
Unusual questions will get candidates to open up and provide insights into what makes them tick. Here are some unusual questions that will reveal a lot about a candidate:

Interview questions to ask

WHAT IS YOUR NATURAL STRENGTH?
A person’s natural strength is not about their current title or what they studied in college. It is a particular skill or ability that, for them, comes as naturally as breathing but that others may find difficult. Other ways to ask this question: If everybody is in the top 5 percent of the world at some skill, what is yours? Or what is your ninja skill?

WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL WOULD YOU BE? AND WHY?
This may strike you as silly, but the answer can tell you a lot, particularly when candidates explain why they chose a certain animal. If you want to test it before you use it in a job interview, try it out at your next dinner party.Ask enough people this question, and you’re likely to hear some surprising answers, and gain valuable insights that will tell you whether they’re right for the job. The chief executive who often asks this question, for example, says that if she’s hiring somebody for sales, she likes to hear a predator as the answer, like a lion. If somebody is going to be working in teams all the time, a social animal may be the right answer. The “why?” part of the answer will also tell you a lot about their level of self-awareness.

WHAT QUALITIES OF YOUR PARENTS DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?
We’re all influenced by our parents, often more than we’d like to admit. So it’s a good bet that the answers to this question will reveal a lot about the candidate. You can also ask how these qualities come out in their daily lives.One chief executive takes this question a step further and asks people about the qualities of their parents they like the least. (That may be a bit too heavy for some people, though.)

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST MISPERCEPTION PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT YOU?
The answers to this question will reveal candidates’ level of self-awareness. Do they know how they come across to others, even in ways that may not be a true reflection of who they are?This can also be a bit of a trick question, too, because what really matters is how people perceive you – in a sense, there is no such thing as misperception; in this context, perception is reality.Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, uses this question often. Here’s what he’s listening for with this approach: “I think it’s a combination of how self-aware people are and how honest they are. I think if someone is self-aware, then they can always continue to grow. If they’re not self-aware, I think it’s harder for them to evolve or adapt beyond who they already are.”