Good Interview Questions

[Japher]

Came in this morning and had a interview sprung on me. I've never given an interview, so I asked a couple of the stupid questions I always get and then we just talked about their career aspirations which were really just a bunch of "whatever I need to say to get the job". Really didn't help me to undestand what they wanted with this job. I could tell by their accomplishments that they had the skills, but I couldn't get to the root of their motivation. The behavioral stuff is fine and dandy, but I don't need that information.

Any suggestions?

[Dauphin]

Really didn't help me to undestand what they wanted with this job.

Start by asking "What do you want with this job?" or variant thereof.

[Japher]

Yeah, I meant "why"... well I knew "why", they were laid off.

[Dauphin]

Afterwards, ask them what they think the job is.

[SlowwHand]

"Tell me about yourself." In most instances, when a resume gets to an interview point, the person has the skills. What's important then is if they will fit in, or if you'll end up gnashing your teeth for the foreseeable future.

[Kontiki]

What Dauphin said. You can also try "where do you want to be in 5/10/x years" and probe further based on their response.

[Riesstiu IV]

If it's a woman: "Will you have sex with me for this job?"

[Darsnan]

I'll pick things out of their resume's (such as "strong troubleshooting skills" or "excels in dynamic environments") and ask them to give examples of these comments. Then based on their answers I'll follow up with another question focusing on one aspect of the answers they gave: this aproach seems to seperate a lot of the BS'ers in the pack.
Some filler questions I use:
- How do you go about ramping up in a new environment?
- What accomplishment are you most proud of in a work environment, and why?
- What is your main weakness (followed up by "how do you go about guarding against it?")?


D

[Dauphin]

As long as you ask open questions (who, what, where why, how, when) that are relevant and specific, you usually get a decent answer.

Avoid questions with yes or no answers, or conditional questions like "Can you give an example?" instead say "Give an example".

Avoid multiple questions in a single run.

Use pauses, it makes the other person want to speak to fill the gap.

[rah]

The behavioral stuff is fine and dandy, but I don't need that information.

Any suggestions?

Yeah, the behavioral stuff. Not to get positive infor but to give them a chance to eliminate themselves without realizing it. But of course if you suspect the person is coached for standard behavioral questions just stop asking them because they won't work.

Besides a few business related technical questions to verify that they aren't bull****ting on their resume, my favorite is always "what's your biggest weakness?" It's fun to watch them squirm. "what was your last failure and what did you learn from it?" I really don't care what they answer but rather how they answer. YOU can tell the schemers that are thinking, how can I answer this and still look good.

The guys that answer, I work to hard and should spend more time home with my family, I can usually eliminate. The best coached answer is "sometimes I try to hard/long to figure something out about something when I probably should have asked for help. I'm working on asking quicker.

In a regular interview that last 60 minutes, there's no question you can ask that will 100% guarentee that you will make a good hire, but behavioral questions can eliminate the losers.

The key is to keep them talking. Just to see how stupid they become after about 30 minutes.

[Zopperoni]

Disclaimer: I've never done anything more than graduate recruitment/screening, but here are some of my favorites:

To what extent do you consider yourself as "being successful"?

What have you done--outside your jobs and education--to expand your knowledge?

Why do you want to work for this organization?

Why should we hire you?

What motivates you to do your best?

What are lessons learned from past mistakes?

[Japher]

Besides a few business related technical questions to verify that they aren't bull****ting on their resume, my favorite is always "what's your biggest weakness?" It's fun to watch them squirm. "what was your last failure and what did you learn from it?" I really don't care what they answer but rather how they answer. YOU can tell the schemers that are thinking, how can I answer this and still look good.

Yeah, I asked "what's your biggest weakness" but prefaced it with "I hate this question." They told me public speaking, I wasn't impressed, though I knew I would get fed a line or given a universal one. At least they didn't turn a strength into a weakness, I hate that. "I work too hard."

I then followed up with "Do you think it's important to try and fix the weakness?" And, "What are you doing to fix it?" IMO, that's a double sided question because a) I don't think it's always necessary to fix a weakness if you can get around it. However, most people will say Yes, but not to be currently doing anything to fix it, nor have a game plan.

The failure question is a good one too. if someone has never failed at anything I suspect they are lying or aren't self aware. They person I interviewed did say that the most important thing about your weakness is being aware of it, and I thought that was a good comment.

[DaShi]

Yeah, the behavioral stuff. Not to get positive infor but to give them a chance to eliminate themselves without realizing it. But of course if you suspect the person is coached for standard behavioral questions just stop asking them because they won't work.

Besides a few business related technical questions to verify that they aren't bull****ting on their resume, my favorite is always "what's your biggest weakness?" It's fun to watch them squirm. "what was your last failure and what did you learn from it?" I really don't care what they answer but rather how they answer. YOU can tell the schemers that are thinking, how can I answer this and still look good.

The guys that answer, I work to hard and should spend more time home with my family, I can usually eliminate. The best coached answer is "sometimes I try to hard/long to figure something out about something when I probably should have asked for help. I'm working on asking quicker.

In a regular interview that last 60 minutes, there's no question you can ask that will 100% guarentee that you will make a good hire, but behavioral questions can eliminate the losers.

The key is to keep them talking. Just to see how stupid they become after about 30 minutes.

Remember it's you versus them. Make sure to masturbate while interviewing them so they know for certain that you're getting off on the power rush.

[rah]

Actually Forums like this are starting to affect interviewing. The more people discuss this online, the more people are likely to be prepared for a question. Being well coached and firing off an answer (after a planned 2-5 second delay) makes the answer sound more honest and real.
And I like the awareness answer also.

But don't discount the behavioral style. It has been quite usefull for me and it does give you some protection from lawsuits. And it is fun listening to someone really bomb out on one while thinking the aced the interview.
We had one guy that it quickly became obvious from every behavioral answer that he had a big issue with authority. He didn't realize what he was saying and thought he was a shoe in for the job. The other hiring manager and I laughed for about an hour. The look on his face when we explained it was priceless.

[snoopy369]

Always ask questions that require them to show a specific example. "What is your biggest weakness" is fine, but "Tell me about a time when you were able to overcome your biggest weakness" is better. Use those to find out whether the person actually understands the question. For example, if I were interviewing my replacement [or someone in the same position as me - data programmer], and interviewing someone with experience in the field, I would ask:
"Describe to me a particularly memorable time when you had to deal with badly formatted or inconsistently formatted data." - shows they know something about data, but also shows what they consider "memorable" ie a big deal [are they a whiner or not, and are they able to handle difficult things]
"Describe to me a time when you had a difficult time fitting your data to the report you were asked to produce." - shows both the whiner/difficult thing above, and also what they are able to handle in terms of reporting, and also creativity
"Describe to me a time when you found an error data you delivered to the client, and when you dug into it, you found that it was your fault. What did you do?" - shows they can admit to mistakes, potentially shows their honesty [not that they'd say they would cover it up, but in their description of the issue], and working under pressure

Of course a candidate can prep for stuff like this, but prepping in and of itself is a good thing [even if it just covers bad things]; at least they put some effort into it. And, you'd be surprised at how many people flunk these anyway