First aid for interview questions
We’ve all been there, interviewing for a job, as candidate or interviewer.
A friend of ours Nelson Scott, who trains and speaks on hiring and retaining the right peole, gives some tips on how to improve common interview questions.
This advice is great for interviewers to ensure new hires are the right fit. Also it may prepare candidates to augment their answers with experiences to indicate the right fit, even if they’re not asked these questions. (Not all HR people read Nelson’s and our newsletters)
Formulaic questions
When answering “what-would-you-do-if” questions, candidates can describe what they think they would do, what the textbooks and professors said they should do, or what they think you would want them to do.
What’s missing?
What will be missing from these responses is evidence that they have faced situations similar to what they might encounter if they are hired, and how they responded. Behavior descriptive interviewing (BDI) inquiries are best to draw this out. (Nelson goes on to describe some of those in the article but he also has a couple of supplementary questions to elicit this.)
Two simple follow-up questions
There are two questions that you can add to probe for evidence of past behaviour. After the candidate has responded to an opinion question with a well-rehearsed answer describing what he/she would do, follow up with one of these supplementary questions:
“Tell us more.”
“Give us an example of a time when you did this.”
Both probes are meant to encourage candidates to keep talking about the scenario they have just discussed, which may provide you with evidence of past behaviour that will be valuable when it’s time to decide whom to hire.
Click here to read the complete article
Nelson Scott – Sea Consulting, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – Writing questions that will yield high-quality information on which to base hiring decisions is a major focus of the Interview Right to Hire Right workshops that Nelson Scott presents. Contact Nelson via email (nmscott@telus.net) to learn more, or to schedule a workshop for anyone in your organization who conducts interviews or makes hiring decisions.
P.S. from Terry – The phrase “Tell me more” also makes a great conversational networking gambit that puts the focus on the other person and makes you seem like a great conversationalist.
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