In a coach's playbook, which seeks to get to the heart of what makes people perform, the interview moment is rife with great possibility. You want to kick off your relationship with an employee the right way. And, for starters, the right way is with the right employee on the job.

Books, magazine articles, and seminars on the subject of interviews abound, from both the employees' and employers' perspectives. These resources have been around for some time now detailing the necessary preparation for both asking the right questions and giving the right answers to those very same questions. Job seekers prepare themselves for interviews, and so do coaches. However, coaches are prepared for the prepared, including both the overprepared and the underprepared.

When you fully prepare yourself for an interview with a potential employee, you approach the get-together with a broad agenda. You view the hiring of a new worker as impacting both your immediate future and indeed your long-term effectiveness as a coach and leader.

You accept the fact that a vigilant interview process is critical to your daily managing efforts today, tomorrow, and six months into the future, and that decisions made in hiring are office snowballs in the making. That is, they gather size and strength over time, and can bowl you over if you're not eternally vigilant. A coach's job is to avoid getting buried by these snowballs.

Before closing this important subject of the coach-employee interview process, there are certain questions you need to be aware of that should never be asked of job applicants. There are questions that are inappropriate, some simply because they have no place in a business setting, and some because they're actually against the law.

You're a coach, and a human being, and so you may be curious about a whole host of things about a person who wants to work for you. Prurient matters may titillate you. But you must always remember that you aren't the host of a trashy TV talk show interviewing a human curiosity; you are a coach interviewing a person who wants a job. You are managing in a professional business environment and don't need to know what is none of your business.

Here are some questions that you have no business asking during an interview:

• What is your age?

• What is your marital status?

• What is your sexual orientation?

• Do you have any physical or mental disabilities?

• Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Arrested for any reason?

• Do you have any serious health problems?

• Are you religious? Do you attend a church? A synagogue? A mosque?

• Do you consume alcohol?

• Are you a Republican? A Democrat? A Green?

And this list could go on and on. In your questioning, just stick with skills, experience, and why the job applicant wants to work for you, and you won't get into any trouble. And as for your curious nature, you'll find out the answers to many of those personal questions in due time anyway, if and when the interviewee makes the cut and joins your ranks. Most people don't conceal their marital status, religion, politics, drinking habits (that's for sure!), and the many other things that have no place in interviews, but are general knowledge in the confines of the office.

We live in a litigious age. You don't want to find yourself the defendant in a lawsuit based on a question you asked a prospective employee. The company that pays your salary wouldn't be too happy about laying out bucks to fight or settle the lawsuit, nor jumping for joy at the negative publicity that comes attached to one.