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Interviewer
How to Interview
Create
interviews quickly and easily with questions matched to the key requirements
for the job. Choose from over 600 interview
questions listed under 48 skills and abilities. Also included
are over 400 interview questions for 34 supervisory skills and abilities.
The 1,000+ interview questions include over 300 behavioral questions.
Use the Interviewer's
Question Bank
Hire the right person.
Del Still, author of High
Impact Hiring provides the answers to a smart hire. Use
his exclusive 7 step process to hire right, sample forms and 175 sample
questions to ask
How
would I create questions to evaluate interpersonal skills?
This depends on what work habits you
include in your definition of interpersonal skills. Do you mean:
teamwork; motivation; leadership; problem solving; empathy; adaptability;
verbal communication; etc.? It would take about 10 pages of type to
respond to your question without more information. There are 35 of
these work habits included in the appendix of "High Impact
Hiring." Please get a copy of the book and look at the list of
work habits there. Then select 10 or 12 questions from the 175
samples included in the book.
What
type of questions will tell me if a person is detail-oriented?
Try these questions:
Have the jobs you held in the past required
little attention, moderate attention, or a great deal of attention to
detail? Give me an example of a situation that illustrates this
requirement.
Do prefer to work with the "big
picture" or the "details" of a situation? Give me an
example of an experience that illustrates your preference.
Tell me about a situation where attention
to detail was either important or unimportant in accomplishing an assigned
task.
Describe a situation where you had the
option to leave the details to others or you could take care of them
yourself.
Tell me about a difficult experience you
had in working with details.
What
type of questions will tell me if a person is self motivated?
Here are just a few examples: "Tell me
about a time when you went out of your way to complete an
assignment?" "Give me an example of a time when a project really
excited you?" "Describe a time when you were unmotivated to get
a job done?" "Tell me about a time when you did more than was
expected of you." "Tell me about a time when you were given an
assignment that was distasteful or unpleasant." Get the idea?
What's
your opinion of having an applicant go through a timed
writing/problem-solving exercise and asking questions based on the written
product?
I have no problem with this approach as
long as you can demonstrate that the exercise is job-related and you're
clear about what knowledge or information you are looking for. If
you plan to make this a part of your interview, be sure to administer this
exercise to ALL candidates. I also encourage you to get work samples
from a job candidate anytime you can. In addition, there are a
number of standardized tests that you can include as part of your
interview process.
I was just hired as a supervisor and will be
interviewing soon. How can I come up with the right questions to ask?
You can start by reviewing (or writing) the job
description. Identify the key duties and responsibilities. Then decide what
skills are needed to perform these key duties and responsibilities. Finally, draft
some open ended interview questions that will make it necessary for the candidate to
explain how they have actually applied these skills in the past.
How many questions should I ask in an interview?
Twelve to 20 experience based questions is about all you can
ask in an interview that lasts from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. However the number of
questions you ask is based on the number of distinct skills that you are looking
for. For each interviewer on your team, you should prepare at least two questions
per skill that the interviewer is responsible for assessing. For example, if my team
was made up of three interviewers and we were all gathering data about the same six
skills, I would need to develop 36 questions (3 interviewers x
6 skills x 2 questions/skill).
Also, Don't give any two interviewers the same questions to
ask. The idea is to get as much data from a candidate as you can without giving the
candidate and opportunity to rehearse. If more than one interviewer asks the same
question, you can see how this might compromise the quality of the data you get.
What is the value, if any, of questions like;
"If you were an animal in the zoo, what animal would you be?
Zero value. These questions only satisfy an
interviewer's need for ego gratification. The biggest problem with a question like
this is that it has no "face validity." The candidate has no idea how to
answer such a question and these questions smack of amateur
psychology. My advice:
stick to open-ended questions that require a candidate to describe specific job related
events that reflect on their skills.
I am currently conducting a seminar
on interviewing/recruiting. I need some examples of probing thoughtfully and any
other suggestions on that topic.
I'm assuming by "probing thoughtfully," you are
asking about techniques to get more detailed information about a candidate's response to
an interview question. The process I recommend requires that you first ask the
candidate to describe a specific job related experience (we call this a "behavior
based question"). Here's an example: "Tell me about a time when you had to
deal with a disagreeable person." In order to get complete information you'll
need to ask the candidate to tell you such details as: who was involved, where did the
event take place, when did it take place, what led up to this situation, what actions were
taken by all parties, what was the final outcome.
The
environment I work in is constantly changing (policy, leadership, etc.).
I'm trying to find a question that would help determine a candidate's
tolerance of change. Can you help?
Try some of these questions.
"Tell me about a time when you
experienced a sudden or dramatic change in your workplace that had a
significant impact on you."
"Summarize your experience working in
a rapidly changing environment."
"Describe a situation you faced where
it was difficult to cope with a change that was thrust upon you."
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