Top 25 Interview Questions You Should Ask a Potential Caregiver

The right caregiver to take care of your loved ones is not always an easy task. Here are some of the most important interview questions to help you get started. Be sure to take notes during the conversation. Always check the references of at least two final applicants. Do not wait too long to make the offer, how well the applicant can find another job. If the offer is accepted, should the caregiver and to define in-home helpers a date to sign the contract and begin work. Both employers and employees should obtain a copy of the contract.
1. Name, address, home phone number, cell phone number, and the best time to call.
2. Do you smoke?
3. You have a driver's license and if so, you have reliable transportation and insurance; How far do you live here?
4. Do you have any CPR or first-aid training? Do you have any formal caregiving training?
5. Do I have your permission to run a background check?
6. What type of position you are looking for? After reviewing our job description, this is the kind of position you are looking for?
7. Can you perform the duties required for this position?
8. Are you comfortable with pets?
9. Are you able to work the hours needed?
10. When are you available to start working?
11. Do you have any medical conditions, to prevent the heavy do? Whether you can transfer from wheelchair to car, or on a bed?
12. If we are delayed, go out of town, or go on vacation would you be able and willing to adjust your schedule?
13. Where did you leave your last job? How long were you there? Why did not you? May we your last employer? Please enter name, phone number and e-mail address.
14. If meal preparation is needed, what kind of food you cook? Did you have experience cooking for others
15. How do you feel about caring for an elderly/disabled person? Or a person with memory problems?
16. How do you handle people who are angry, stubborn, or fearful?
17. What type of diagnoses have you cared for?
18. Is there anything in the job description that you are uncomfortable doing?
19. Give an example of a difficult situation you handled with a customer. For example, had a shower like you to handle the rejection?
20. What time commitment are you willing to make to stay on the job?
21. Will you keep daily records? Do you know how to use a computer?
22. Why should I hire you?
23. Are you willing to sign a contract saying you will not accept money or gifts from my parents?
24. How will you keep the family informed?
25. Can you give me two work related and one personal reference?

When you hire a caregiver be sure to provide an employment application, W-4 tax Form, job description, and summary of the care-receiver's condition. Ask the caregiver to provide written references, completed employment application, completed W-4 Form, and signed copy of job description, copy of driver's license, car registration, and insurance.

Owner Builders: 43 Interview Questions You Need to Ask When Choosing the Right Sub-Contractors

Owner builders monitored the construction of their new home, cutting the cost of a general contractor. To do this, although they will have, an owner builders hire and manage their own subcontractors.

Choosing the right subcontractors who will make the difference between a successful owner builder construction project and financial ruin.

Owner builders need to ask these 43 questions when choosing their sub-contractors:

Owner Builder Questions to Sub-Contractors

1) How long have you been in business?

2) Have you or your partners worked under any other names?

3) How many jobs do you do per year?

4) How many jobs do you work concurrently?

5) How much time are you (the owner of the sub-contractor firm) on site personally?

6) How many crews do you have?

7) Will you be working with the crew on my site?

8) Do you sub out any of the work? If so, what?

9) Do you have a contract you use? (Not a contract of their own construction company owner, and if possible all of the sub, please use the contract with the contractor.)

10) Can you provide me with a copy of the contract in advance?

11) If you work for a foreman how long? If the work itself is not the owner of the company (owner builders have this question.)

12) Please provide me with a bank reference.

13) Please provide me with a copy of your insurance certificate.

14) Do you have any for you arising from any owner or builder you are working for? (Owner builders can check their bankruptcy, judgments and litigation background. Let them know that you will check.)

15) If yes, why, and what was the outcome?

16) How many change orders would you consider average per job?

17) whether there is any change orders or charges (except for the obvious change in the cost)? Some contractors charge this fee.

18) If a mistake is made by one of your crews, who pays for it?

19) What kind of warranty do you provide?

20) Are your warranties guaranteed by you or a third party?

21) Please provide 3 (or 5) references for work done in the last 6 months.

22) Please provide 3 (or 5) suppliers you buy materials from.

Owner Builder Questions to Sub-Contractor's References

1) How would you rate your experience with this contractor?

2) How would you rate the contractor's communication with you?

3) What are the contractor's strong points?

4) Weak points?

5) Why did you choose this contractor? Was it quality, price, reputation, other?

6) Was the work finished on time?

7) Was the work completed on budget?

8) Would you hire this contractor again?

9) Have you called them back for any warranty work?

10) If yes, how did they respond?

11) Did they keep the work area clean and neat?

12) Were they easily accessible by phone?

13) Was he (if the owner) on site or did he have a supervisor on site?

14) Was the on-site supervision adequate?

15) Would you recommend them to a family member?

Owner Builder Questions to Sub-Contractor's Supplier References

1) How long have you known the contractor?

2) How would you rate his/her reputation?

3) Does he/she have an open account with you?

4) If so, what are the payment terms, and does he pay on time?

5) How much of your business does he do with you each year?(1%, 5%, etc.)

6) What is your relationship with the contractor? (Is it strictly business, personal friend, family, etc.?)

Remember, most home owner builder makes more ready before hammering the first nail. Owner builders will save considerable time and money this way.

Owner builders who skip these steps and who think they can have a verbal agreement with a sub-contractor get burned in the long run.

Remember the big picture! The target building owners is to build our dream home and save tens of thousands of dollars in the process. This does not mean owner builders must be cheap.

And it does not mean that owner builders should skip steps just to get to the fun of building - you will have plenty of time for that!

What's New in Windows Communication Foundation 4.0

Controlling Service Activation Based on Available Memory

Some WCF services may not run optimally when memory resources are constrained. The Window Communication Foundation allows the user to configure a setting that specifies a lower bound on the amount of free memory when the service is run under Full Trust. If there is less free memory available than the value of this setting, the service will not be activated and an exception will be thrown. minFreeMemoryToActivateService is a configuration file setting that allows the user to specify a percentage of free memory that is required to be free in order to activate a service, the default value is 5 per cent.

Support for WS-Discovery

The Service Discovery feature enables client applications to dynamically discover service addresses at runtime in an interoperable way using WS-Discovery. The WS-Discovery specification outlines the message-exchange patterns (MEPs) required for performing light-weight discovery of services, both by multicast (ad hoc) and unicast (utilizing a network resource).

Standard Endpoints

Standard endpoint are pre-defined endpoints that have one or more of their properties (address, binding, contract) fixed. For example all metadata exchange endpoints specify IMetadataExchange as their contract, so there is no need for a developer to have to specify the contract. The standard MEX endpoint therefore has a fixed IMetadataExchange contract.

Workflow Services

With the introduction of a set of messaging activities it is easier than ever to implment workflows that send and receive data. These messaging activites allow you to model complex message exchange patterns that go outside of the traditional send/receive or RPC-style method invocation.

Web Hosting a .NET Framework 3.5 WCF Service on a Machine Running .NET Framework 4.0

When hosting a WCF service written with .NET Framework 3.5 on a machine running .NET Framework 4.0, you may get a T:System.ServiceModel.ProtocolException with the following text:

Unhandled Exception: System.ServiceModel.ProtocolException: The content type tex t/html; charset=utf-8 of the response message does not match the content type of the binding (application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8). If using a custom encoder, b e sure that the IsContentTypeSupported method is implemented properly. The first 1024 bytes of the response were: '<html> <head> <title>The application domain or application pool is currently running v ersion 4.0 or later of the .NET Framework. This can occur if IIS settings have b een set to 4.0 or later for this Web application, or if you are using version 4. 0 or later of the ASP.NET Web Development Server. The &lt;compilation&gt; elemen t in the Web.config file for this Web application does not contain the required 'targetFrameworkMoniker' attribute for this version of the .NET Framework (for e xample, '&lt;compilation targetFrameworkMoniker=&quot;.NETFramework,Version=v4.0 &quot;&gt;'). Update the Web.config file with this attribute, or configure the W eb application to use a different version of the .NET Framework.</title>...

Or if you try to browse to the service's .svc file you may see the an error page with the following text.

The application domain or application pool is currently running version 4.0 or later of the .NET Framework. This can occur if IIS settings have been set to 4.0 or later for this Web application, or if you are using version 4.0 or later of the ASP.NET Web Development Server. The <compilation> element in the Web.config file for this Web application does not contain the required 'targetFrameworkMoniker' attribute for this version of the .NET Framework (for example, '<compilation targetFrameworkMoniker=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0">'). Update the Web.config file with this attribute, or configure the Web application to use a different version of the .NET Framework.

These errors occur because the application domain IIS is running within is running .NET Framework 4.0 and the WCF service is expecting to run under .NET Framework 3.5. To fix this problem open the service's web.config file and find the <compilation> element. Add the targetFrameworkMoniker attribute as shown in the following XML example.