Interview questions to avoid and what to ask instead
Eight years ago I wrote this blog about interviewing. At the time (28 May 2008) it was my third
blog about interviewing in eight months of blogging. In the 96 months since I have written an additional 30 blogs about interviewing and assessment. After eight years I had hoped that I could have reported an upsurge in interviewing skills amongst recruiters. Sadly, I cannot. Recruiters are still asking candidates; “what are your greatest strengths?”, “what would your manager say about you” and similar questions that have no validity. I am republishing this blog in the hope that at least one recruiter will never again ask a candidate; “what are your greatest strengths?”
Interview questions to avoid and what to ask instead
Originally published in InSight 34, 28 May 2008
I recently did some consulting work for a new client and as part of my work, I reviewed their interviewing template and observed a couple of consultant interviews.
Oh dear!
It was more than a little disappointing to see how ineffective the process was, in accomplishing the critical tasks of an interview.
Having looked at the interviewing template, it was hardly surprising that these interviews were so poor. Interviewing templates are very important for rookie interviewers in ensuring that all the relevant areas of an interview are covered and, just as importantly, in reducing the chances of ineffectual, irrelevant or illegal questions being asked.
The three pillars of an effective interview are:
- To understand the job/career aspirations and motivators/drivers of the candidate and as a result, whether the candidate is committed to their job search or merely interested in their job search.
- To understand whether the candidate has the technical skills and behavioural competencies relevant to your current clients and/or your prospective clients and the motivation to do the job on offer, or potentially on offer.
- The candidate leaves the interview with the experience of being: validated, appreciated, understood and affirmed
Point 1 is primarily for the recruiter’s benefit (so we don’t waste time working on candidates who are only ‘window shopping’).
Point 2 is primarily for the benefit of our client or prospective client (so we only recommend suitable candidates).
Point 3 is primarily for the benefit of the candidate (so they leave the interview with a positive experience and will recommend us to others, regardless of whether they are placed by us or not).
Unfortunately poor interview questions and processes can very quickly undo any good work the recruiter may have been done prior to that point.
Here are a few interview questions I recommend you avoid asking and an alternative way to ask the same question.
Ineffective question: What are your major strengths?
Effective question: In your last performance review, what aspects of your work did your reviewer mention as being particularly good or strong?
OR What accomplishment(s) or aspects of your current/most recent work are you most proud of? Why you are proud of it/them and describe to me how you accomplished it/them?
Ineffective question: What are your major weaknesses?
Effective question: In your last performance review, what aspects of your work did your reviewer mention as needing to improve the most, to take your work performance to the next level and tell me what you have done with respect to that feedback?
Comment: The two ineffective questions above are both opinion-based questions and as such, will elicit an opinion from the candidate. It is critical to gain evidence during an interview.
A behavioural-based question explicitly asks for evidence (ie. “what happened”) whereas an opinion-based question does not.
Ineffective question: What will you do if your child gets sick during work time?
OR Do you have young children?
Effective question: Because of the intense customer-focused and high response nature of this job (or substitute any other valid job-related criteria), it is extremely difficult for the client to be flexible with starting and finishing times between the core hours of 9am and 5pm.Does that present any difficulties for you with respect to any other commitments you have?
Comment: Although this sort of question may be asked with good intention, the reality is that if the candidate does not gain an offer for the job, they may believe it is because they gave the ‘wrong’ answer to this question and as such were discriminated against on non-job related criteria. Always ask questions that are specifically and demonstrably job-related questions.
Ineffective question: How did you feel about that feedback?
Effective question: How did you respond when you received that feedback?
Comment: Asking a candidate about their feelings with respect to anything, is a very indirect and unreliable way of asking a question where you need a definitive and reliable answer (eg I feel good about hamburgers, I just don’t want one right now).
What a candidate feels might be interesting to know, but how a candidate behaves is what determines job performance. When you start asking candidates about their feelings you risk drifting into the territory of a counseller or therapist.
Ineffective question: Where do you see yourself in three years’ time?
Effective question: What skills do you want to gain or improve in the next 12 months and what steps have you taken recently to achieve this?
Comment: In this day and age of rapid change in the job market, who really knows where they are going to be in three or five years’ time? I know I don’t. This may have been a sound interview question to ask in a much more predictable work world (25 years ago), but not anymore.
Here is a quick guide to the difference between effective and ineffective interview questions:
| Effective interview questions | Ineffective interview questions |
| are specific and direct | are general, vague or indirect |
| ask for details of demonstrated behaviour (evidence of what happened) | ask for theories or opinions or about a candidate’s feelings |
| are job-related | are irrelevant to the job criteria and/or could be interpreted as discriminatory |
| demonstrate thorough interview preparation (ie the candidate’s resume has been read) | are questions to which the resume has already supplied the answer |
Before undertaking any interview, a recruiter needs to clearly understand the job brief and construct their questions to best assess the 4-5 key competency-based criteria for the role.
A high performing recruiter conducts excellent interviews. Asking effective questions is the foundation of effective interviewing.
Any recruiter would gain much by thoroughly reviewing their interview questions and requesting peer feedback on their interviews.
How effective are YOUR interview questions?