How to – Ask the Right Questions When Interviewing Candidates When job candidates tell me some of the questions they are asked during their job interviews, I cringe.

• “What are your three biggest strengths?”
• “What are your three biggest weaknesses?”
• “Tell me about yourself.”
• “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

If you are asking these questions, consider yourself among the lazy hiring managers who deserve exactly what they get: a poor fit for the job, the department and the organization.

There are many things that go into a good, targeted job interview; and questions that probe weaknesses and validate strengths are essential. The next time you find yourself sitting across from a potential employee, ask questions that will get you some useful information to help you make a better hiring decision:

How much can you learn about them to determine if they will be a good fit?

What did you think of our website?

How do you think we compare with our competition?

What unique attributes, skills or talents could you bring to our team?

How do they deal with stress?

Can you tell me about an ongoing and stressful part of you last job and how you dealt with it?

What makes you the best fit for this position compared to the others I’m interviewing?

What type of person is the most challenging for you to deal with as a co-worker and how do you address that?

Can they do the job?

When you worked at ABC Financial, what was the most challenging part of learning their system?

When you ran the HR department at XYZ Systems, what were the steps you took to create your senior team?

I see you were in charge of a system conversion at 123 Bancorp. How did you transfer data and maintain field integrity?  9:36 AM •