Better Job Selection Process - Great Interview Questions
A good friend of mine reached out to me recently inquiring if I had any good interview questions for candidates who would be going through his hiring process. Specifically, things beyond the normal questions. While I applauded him for thinking creatively, I also realized that the best hiring practices, beyond the legal requirements, are found in the conversations based on these questions.
What I find most often in interviews are questions such as these:
Tell me about yourself
Walk me through your resume
How did you hear about this position?
Why do you want to work at this company?
Why should we hire you?
What can you bring to the company?
What are your greatest strengths?
What are your greatest weaknesses?
These questions drive me crazy. They are so practiced. So standard. If an interviewee can't answer these questions, I question how they got to the interview stage in the first place. What we want, and should be looking for, are the questions that draw out from the candidate how they work through problems, how they communicate, how they deal with people. And in addition, how they deal with the circumstances that are unique to this organization, that department, or this job. If we had better questions that went beyond the basics, maybe we wouldn't have so many bad hires.
Think about these questions…
You might not know that we've had some challenges in the last couple of years (State the challenges). How would you go about overcoming these issues?
Tell me, from your perspective what is the most important aspect in building deep, trusting, meaningful relationships both internally in the organization and externally with the community? And tactically, how do you do that?
Tell me one or two of your greatest failures, and what you learned from them.
How would you deal with, in terms of the balance of power, two authoritative figures when giving you contrary suggestions or directions?
How do you define hard and productive work?
What excites you professionally? And why?
In detail, what do your first 30, 60, and 90 days look like for you?
Specifically, how do you elevate a subordinate’s performance and/or help them succeed?
Think about the conversations, and what might be learned, when you ask these types of questions. That's much more insightful about the responsibilities of a particular job, what leadership they might display, how they engage with others, and how they deal with challenges. And, on a side note, my hope was always that they were interviewing me as much as I was interviewing them. If they don't have insightful, detail-oriented, difficult questions, I wonder if they want THIS job or they want A job.
In the end, our turnover rate is way too high. Much of that comes from not interviewing very well: making decisions well before the appropriate time/ or information is truly at hand. Longer interviews, with the right questions, can help both the organization and individuals seeking a job find the right connection to serve and satisfy both employer and employee.
