25 Great Interview Questions

Interviewing remains one of the most important ways of judging another person before you employ them; yet, strangely it is a skill that few people seem to master. (Many recruitment agents that I have met also have poor interviewing skills, but they survive and succeed because they develop very strong instincts.)

I have taken this extract from one of the downloads available at our membership site. (There are more of course :-))
Excellent Interview Questions

Team

1.    Example of when you had a major work disagreement and how was it resolved?
2.    What would you do differently?
3.    What are the types of things you usually disagree with superiors about?
4.    What do you like about your current supervisor?
5.    What do you dislike about your current supervisor?

Motivation

1.    What things in life make you truly happy?
2.    Which unfulfilled dreams do you have outside of work?
3.    If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
4.    What did you want to be when you grew up?
5.    (And if different…) Why are you doing what you are doing now?

Real Person: Cultural fit

1.    Everybody is unique. In what way are you different from your friends?
2.    How would your best friend describe you?
3.    How would your worst enemy describe you?
4.    If you Kindergarten teacher saw you now, what would surprise him/her about how you turned out?
5.    What would you like to change about yourself?

Job Attitude & Work Ethic

1.    If money was no object, what would you be doing?
2.    If you could do any job you liked except this one – what would it be?
3.    What do you consider to be acceptable reasons for being late for work?
4.    What do you consider to be unreasonable work demand?
5.    What doe Work-Life balance mean to you?

Choices & Trade-off

1.    Would you rather lie to your wife or your boss – and you are not allowed to say ‘neither’
2.    Explain the last major life decision that you got wrong
3.    Work decision?
4.    What, except for illegal activities, do you consider to be a fire-able offence?
5.    Who do you admire and why?

Technical/ Functional Discipline

Depending on the actual discipline, of course, but if it was for instance a retail marketing role:
1.    Do you have a twitter account?
2.    What is the future of marketing?
3.    Can you explain what EGN means?
4.    Describe why Marketing can make a difference in this organisation.
5.    Which department other than marketing  would you consider to be the most important.

The KEY to good interviewing questions is to get the candidate to describe their past behaviours. This is the best indicator of future behaviours.

The worst thing you can do is to ask questions that they have prepared for: “where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time”?

Do you have favourite questions? Or effective questions to add?

Have fun…

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