Asking Questions

LEARNING OUTCOMES

For best results—and to avoid litigation—interview questions should be relevant to the position and reflect the realities of both the position and the operating environment. To be specific, questions should focus on the job duties, relevant skills and qualifications, and related success factors. A key point to keep in mind is that questions represent not only the position but the company’s values. Understand that an interview is a two-way assessment; that is, a candidate is also evaluating interview questions, assessments, and interactions with company representatives to determine believability and “fit.”

There are two types of interviews: unstructured and structured. In an unstructured interview, the interviewer may ask different questions of each different candidate. One candidate might be asked about her career goals and another might be asked about his previous work experience. In an unstructured interview, the questions are often, though not always, unspecified beforehand. In an unstructured interview the responses to questions asked are generally not scored using a standard system. This type of interview can be particularly useful when interviewing for a new (and possibly still nebulously defined) position. As you interview candidates, their expertise and knowledge of the field will help flesh out the new position.

Figure 1. Studies of job interviews show that they are more effective at predicting future job performance when they are structured.

In a structured interview, the interviewer asks the same questions of every candidate, the questions are prepared in advance, and the interviewer uses a standardized rating system for each response. With this approach, the interviewer can accurately compare two candidates’ interviews. In a meta-analysis of studies examining the effectiveness of various types of job interviews, McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt & Maurer (1994) found that structured interviews were more effective at predicting subsequent job performance of the job candidate.

What You Should Ask

Interview questions will be different for each job; after all, it takes very different skills to create a product than it does to sell the product. The job advertisement can be a good source for interview questions. After all, it contains a good summary of the required skills and knowledge needed for the position.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Often you’ll find that you have several equally talented candidates if you simply ask about the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for the job. Once you’ve established your pool of top contenders, you can start looking at individuals to evaluate their fit in the company.

So how do you come up with these questions? First Round’s interview with Koru Co-Founder and CEO Kristen Hamilton provides perspective on getting at the person behind the resume. The opening sentence is an admission: “Hiring the right people is hard.”^[1] In order to improve the odds of success, Hamilton recommends focusing on skill sets and mindsets instead of metrics such as GPA. Based on extensive employer research and reverse engineering exceptional performers, Hamilton identified seven core characteristics that in combination translate into job success or, as she phrases it, “someone killing it at their job”:^[2]

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First Round’s compilation, “The Best Interview Questions We’ve Ever Published” is an excellent source of not only interview questions but perspective on candidate evaluation (and, for those who are interviewing, the intent behind questions).

What You Shouldn’t Ask

Perhaps the first step in developing effective interview questions—both in forming questions and in coaching inexperienced interviewees—is to know what’s off limits. As advised in a SHRM article, you need to be aware of both state and federal laws when considering interview questions and procedures^[3]. For perspective, California Department of Fair Employment & Housing guidelines recommend that “employers limit requests for information during the pre-employment process to those details essential to determining a person’s qualifications to do the job (with or without reasonable accommodations).”^[4]

The best policy is to consider questions that relate to protected categories—that is, those that reference a candidate’s age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc.—off limits. Even if they’re not illegal per se in a particular state, they may be seen as a discriminatory hiring practice that negatively impacts the employer’s brand and recruiting efforts.