What Questions Should I Avoid in an Interview?

At Talance Group, we are dedicated to improving the hiring process for companies and professionals. One of the most important parts of the process is the actual job interview. This is an opportunity to determine if a candidate is a good fit for the role and for the company. Asking the right questions is essential to making sure you choose the right candidate. Equally important is knowing which questions to avoid. Keep reading for Talance Group’s advice on interview questions.

 

1.   Skip the Canned Questions

In a job interview, hiring managers have a limited amount of time to glean important information about a candidate. When we ask the ambiguous questions that have been circulating for generations, we aren’t effectively fulfilling the purpose of the interview. Not only are canned questions vague, but they tend to elicit canned responses. This wastes valuable time in the interview. Skip asking general questions about greatest strengths and accomplishments and avoid the dreaded “tell me about yourself.” These questions put candidates in a mentality of selling themselves, instead of facilitating a meaningful conversation to determine if there’s a good fit.

 

2.   Avoid Questions Unrelated to the Role

Before a hiring manager or interviewer sits down with a candidate, it’s important to outline the skills and experience the role requires. Is there is a particular technical prowess, specialized knowledge, or soft skill required to do the job successfully? Cut any questions that don’t directly relate to the role or company culture. Instead, tell the candidate exactly what you are looking for and ask for examples of when and how they have applied these same skills in the past. Be sure to ask detailed follow up questions to fully understand how they approach problem solving and how this may relate to your open position. Seek out concrete demonstrations of these skills to separate weaker candidates from star players.

 

3.   Consider the Challenges the Role is Designed to Solve

In addition to skills required for the successful execution of the role, it’s important to determine beforehand exactly what you’d like this person to accomplish within a certain timeframe. In order to gauge if a candidate can perform the role at a high level, you need to know yourself what superior performance looks like and how you’ll measure it. Give the candidate the end result you’d like to see and ask them to describe from their past experience how they solved a similar issue or how they would approach such a task. Don’t forget to ask for details and examples! By improving the specificity of your interview questions, not only will the hiring manager be better able to determine the candidate’s fitness for the role, but the candidate will gain a clearer understanding of the role as well.

 

Partner with Talance

At Talance Group, we’re dedicated to improving talent acquisition so that our clients and candidates both find the growth they desire. We will work with you not only to find the talent you need, but to help ensure that your placement is successful. The recruiting professionals at Talance Group have years of experience in their dedicated areas of focus as well as in the hiring process, and enthusiastically share best practices to streamline your talent search. For more information about our services, reach out to us today at talancegroup.com/contact-us.

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