Interviewing is both an art and a science. An art, because there is always an element of trusting your gut when getting to know people during the interview process. But there is also science to behavioral or other types of questions that try to pin down the specific experiences of candidates.
No matter your process or the questions you ask, your goal is to come up with the best possible questions to help you find the best match. This blow will help you with better interview questions to make this process smoother.
Interview Tips 101
The first thing to recognize today is that job candidates are interviewing you as much as you’re interviewing them. So, you want the process to be welcoming and comfortable, not a serious grilling that leaves the candidate turned off by your aggressive approach.
Many of these interviews are conducted on Zoom these days. No matter the venue, it’s important to have a list of questions prepared before the interview. There’s nothing worse than trying to wing it when you have a candidate on the hook. It can make you look ill-prepared but also won’t be a great process to help figure out if they’re the right person to hire.
Some general tip for the best interview questions include:
- Ask open-ended questions, not yes or no questions. Or, if you do ask a yes/no question, you must always follow it up with more questions related to the “why” of their answer. Sometimes using “why” or “how” make for a powerful follow-up.
- Don’t ask typical questions but don’t be so clever you’re annoying. What we mean by that is skip any trick questions and focus on questions that allow the candidate to highlight their skills and experiences.
- Speaking of experiences, ask the candidate to describe things like what was their last team like or what job duties were they responsible for? It’s good to ask “Did you ever have a time when you…” to get some examples of situations the candidate faced. Then follow up with “What did you learn from that experience?”
- Skip canned questions that are almost cliché, such as “What is your greatest weakness?” Or, “What is your style of leadership?” Instead, ask them to describe what leading a department, team, or project was like. What were their challenges? Did they overcome them?
Some great questions to ask in 2022 include:
- What is the career accomplishment you’re most pleased by?
- Tell me something about yourself that isn’t on social media or your resume?
- What is it about your prior roles that you believe make you a good fit for this job?
- Why did you apply to this job?
- How would your former manager describe you?
- If we hired you for this role, what would you like to accomplish in your first 30-days.
- When was the last time you failed to achieve a goal? What happened?
- Walk me through how you manage time during a typical day?
- When was the last time you took a great risk? What did you do?
- Is there a piece of critical feedback that you’ve heard more than once in your professional career?
- Have you ever had to adapt to a major and unexpected change in your organization? How did you cope?
The team at PrideStaff are expert interviewers, serving as the right arm of leading companies to help them find talent. We can help your organization meet its hiring goals. Call on us.
