At some point in their career, every manager has at one time googled, “Best Interview Questions.” While filling your question bank with google’s top 20 interview questions is better than nothing, we should always be striving to reach further excellence in everything that we do.
How can employers know what questions to ask in an interview?
Quite simply, the best method of going about the selection of interview questions is to first identify what employee behaviours you find to be desirable and equate to success within your organization. The questions you would find through google searches are fairly standard and typically safe to ask, however they are extremely general. These questions may not accurately address the behavior you are trying to promote within your organization, and often prompt rehearsed answers from your interview candidates.
Upon identifying the desirable employee behaviors, the next step is to begin structuring questions that cannot be rehearsed prior to the interview. Therefore, the questions should be situational in nature and behaviour oriented. The interviewer should put the candidate in a hypothetical situation where the candidate would have to utilize critical thinking, explain what they would do in a methodical manner, and support their actions using examples from their professional work history.
Scoring Systems vs. Gut Feelings:
Similar to googling interview questions, many managers are also guilty of at one point uttering the phrase, “my gut tells me ___,” when making hiring decisions. The truth of the matter is, we tend to assign a higher value to individuals that are similar to us and devalue those that are different. Our natural biases can dominate our hiring decisions and we tend to make decisions based off non-work related criteria. The best course of action is to utilize a scoring system that will keep the grading of candidates as objective as possible.
Final Thoughts:
We highly recommend having your recruiting and interview processes reviewed by an HR Professional. Processes and procedures need to be continuously reviewed for validity, reliability, legality, and ethical implications.
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Michael Chiovitti, Chief Talent Strategist
Eden Resources, LLC