Episode 164 - When You’re the Interviewer, What to Ask?

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When you are interviewing someone, what kind of questions should you ask so you know you are hearing substance not flash?

Here are some suggestions.

1. Use general questions at first to encourage him to give you honest, open answers and to get past any jitters or nervousness. His resume will give you clues. For example, you might ask, “I see you grew up in Arizona but graduated from the University of Michigan. How’d you come to go to school up there?”
2. Be direct in your questions so it’s not a cat and mouse game. Get to the point. Instead of asking, “Well, what made you want to study engineering?” it’s better to ask, “Why do you want to work here?”
3. According to Sam Deep in the book “Smart Moves,” skip asking leading questions that start off with, “What would you do if you had an unhappy customer who…?” Those fishing expeditions encourage a smart interviewee to say what he thinks you want to hear instead of the real answer. Better to ask him about his experiences with unreasonable customers and how he handled it.
4. Ask probing questions that relate to the characteristics you are looking for.
5. Also, according to Sam Deep, “encourage honesty by letting the interviewee know you will be checking information with past supervisors.” For example you might say, “I’m going to be checking this out with other people, but I also want to hear your perception of why your job was eliminated.”

This line of questioning will help you have a comfortable interview and find the best person for the job.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 5:30 am and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Episode 164 - When You’re the Interviewer, What to Ask?

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