When you’re a hiring manager your same old questions can become so mundane and honestly, they’re not even that effective anymore.
Candidates find new ways to avoid your generic and outdated questions every single day.
But here’s what you need to know to turn things around;
What Are Effective Questions and Why are They Important?
When you have asked effective interview questions, it will allow you to piece together different aspects of a candidate’s personality and skillset in order to gauge whether or not they would be a good fit for the position and the company and/or industry.
In contrast, ineffective interview questions will leave you unsure, frustrated and unable to make a decision confidently. This is the last thing you want when trying to find a suitable candidate.
So how exactly do you tell which is which?
Ineffective interview questions will (likely) give you a vague or dishonest answer this is because you probably gave away what answer you were looking for by how you phrased the question, here’s an example;
“Would you be willing to work 2 – 4 hours of overtime per week?”
Of course, they will say yes, even if they aren’t really willing to do that.
An effective interview question will give you an honest or more precise answer even if it isn’t the answer you were looking for, here’s a better alternative to that question;
“Realistically, how many hours of overtime can you work per week?”
This will prompt them to think about how they could make overtime work with their lifestyle and schedule.
‘Find’ The Ideal Candidate
The epicenter of all of your interview questions should be focused around the job description for the available position.
Creating an ideal candidate profile will ensure that you stay on track and don’t just hire the most charismatic candidate because their charm convinced you to do so.
You can start by asking yourself the following questions and listing the answers realistically:
- What kind of educational background should this person have? Is a degree a necessity or will one or two years of college suffice?
- What work experience, if any, would have prepared them to properly fulfill this role?
- What type of personality should this person have to be successful in this job and bigger picture, to excel in the company?
- What age group is dominant in the immediate space of this person? How would someone in a different age group get along with their teammates and what attributes would they have to have in order to be able to do that efficiently?
All of these questions will allow you to build a framework in your mind of who you’re looking for. You can use all of this information when doing the job posting as well as the candidate shortlist selection and everything in between.
Start With Warm-Up Questions
Warm-up questions are a great way to loosen up your candidates, especially the really nervous ones.
But please, for the love of all things holy, avoid the cliched “Tell me about yourself” instead you can ask the candidate “So (candidate’s name here} what’s your story?”
Phrasing this overused, generic question differently just helped your candidate go from “What the hell do I say?” to “oh, well where do I begin?”
The former will paint an inaccurate picture of who your candidate is while the latter will show you what your candidate thinks is important about themselves, which in turn will show you what they value in life and about him/herself.
That’s worth a lot more than having a nervous candidate stammer around to think up an answer or have a more confident candidate recite their rehearsed speech that they prepared for the dreaded “tell me about yourself” question.
You can also break the ice in a different way altogether, by using funny interview questions. This helps the candidate relax and gives them a sense of the company culture they will be integrating into.
Ask Questions that Will Prompt Honest Answers
Getting an honest answer out of candidates is a challenging task at times but it’s crucial if you want to find the right person for the job.
So how then do you get them to answer your questions honestly?
By asking questions they wouldn’t expect in a way that they wouldn’t expect.
Instead of asking “Tell me about your work experience” you could phrase it like this, “Tell me about what you did in your previous jobs that you think helped prepare you for this position?”
The alternative question will force them to sift through their roles and responsibilities and match them to the skills that they think are important to succeed at the job they’re applying for.
Try and find meaningful and effective alternatives to common questions to keep it fresh and spark some creativity in your candidates.
Example Questions
Example questions are a great way to rephrase common and generic questions that candidates are always prepared (bored) for.
Alternatives for the question “What is your weakness?” could be “Give me an example of a time your weakness made it challenging for you to complete a task” or “If I phoned your high school (or college) football coach what would he say is your weakness?”
Instead of asking a candidate if he or she works better alone or in a group you can ask “Could you give me an example of a time that you had trouble working with an individual in a group and what did you do about it?”
So now instead of getting what is essentially a yes or no answer, you will learn how this candidate solves conflict and what type of people they have trouble working with.
Example questions are awesome because they reveal so much more of who a candidate is and how they think and reason than any other type of question.
Follow Up Questions
You should be taking notes during the interview and asking follow up questions to things that could possibly give you more insight into the candidate’s experience, skills or expertise.
But more often than not, your questions can go unanswered in the whirlwind that is an interview so be sure to collect business cards from the candidates and have a stack of your professional looking business card to hand out to them in return.
You can go through your notes on your own time and give the candidates a follow-up call to clarify anything that needs any further clarifying.
After all, you don’t want to hire a candidate when you’re unsure about important details.
