People ask me all the time what questions they should be asking when interviewing candidates. Let me be clear. There are no right or wrong questions so stop trying to create the perfect interview and instead focus on what matters.
The questions you ask are the means to an end. You are trying to determine if a candidate is the right fit for your organization and the position that you are trying to fill. Therefore, the focus should be on what you observed during the interview and what you do with this information. Here’s what I mean by this. Most interviewers go through their list of questions like they were on a ride at an amusement park. They never go off track, regardless of the response they receive. So instead, they simply use their questions as a check list and are delighted when they get to the end and all the boxes are ticked.
How a person answers a question is usually more important than what they say. For example, if you are interviewing for a delivery person and he tells you in a pretty lethargic way that he handled more volume than any other driver then one has to wonder if he was the best of the worst people in that organization. I talk about this in detail in my book, Selecting for Success: The Complete Guide to Hiring Top Talent. I suggest you download a copy and read this today and I guarantee you will immediately improve your ability to assess candidates.
