Questions to Ask During An Evaluator Interview

Here's a list of questions you may want to include in an interview:

1. What is your background and experience as a professional evaluator?
2. Please describe your formal education and training in program evaluation.
3. What is your typical approach to evaluation?
4. What experience have you had with programs like ours?
5. What do you charge and, specifically, what services do you provide for that fee?
6. If we contract with you or your organization, who will actually be doing the work? What are his or her qualifications?
7. Can we meet him or her before signing a contract?
8. How many visits will you make to our site during the contract period? What will you do during those visits?
9. Do you require that data be provided in a particular format?
10. Please describe an evaluation project you conducted in the last few years that went very well. Please also describe a project that did not go so well. Why was it a challenge?
11. If you have a dispute with a client, how do you resolve it?
12. What is your greatest strength in evaluation work? What is your greatest weakness?
13. What final products will you provide? Will we have the opportunity to review and edit all products before you finalize them? If not, why not?
14. Will all evaluation products be our property at the conclusion of your work?