Which interview questions really work?
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Interviews serve as a 30 minute to one hour pitch for both company and applicant. This high-stake situation means every question counts. As an employer, you want to be able to attract top talent, and candidates want to showcase their skills and abilities without bragging. What to Look […]
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Interviews serve as a 30 minute to one hour pitch for both company and applicant. This high-stake situation means every question counts. As an employer, you want to be able to attract top talent, and candidates want to showcase their skills and abilities without bragging.
What to Look for in an Interview Question
For the most part, open-ended, probing questions are the best ones to ask. They tend to get you a lot more useful information than questions with simple yes or no answers.
Following is a short list of 10 best questions to ask candidates to lead to a deeper understanding of their skills, talents, and beliefs that will have an impact, good or bad, on your company.
- Tell me about your best achievement in a past position.
- Tell me about your biggest mistake in the past, and what you learned from it.
- Tell me about how you overcame an obstacle in your path to achieve your goal.
- Tell me about a project where you worked successfully with a team. Or, tell me about a time when working on a project with others was challenging.
- When I contact your past employer, what are some things they might say about your weaknesses or areas where you can improve.
- What did you like best about your previous role? What did you like least?
- What type of environment or corporate culture brings out your best work?
- Tell me about what skills and value you would bring to [your company name].
- What are your thoughts on our website? Tell me what you think we’re doing right and what we can improve.
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
You can see that the majority of these are open-ended so that you can probe deeper to find hidden beliefs and character traits.
If you’re concerned about someone’s attitude, Inc. Magazine has an article that suggests some questions you can ask to try to identify toxic candidates.
Final Note
Interviewing is a skill like any other the more you do it, the better you’ll get at reading people and their answers. And the more you ask these particular questions, the more pointed you can make them so that they’re relevant for your company.
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