There is so much you could say about interview questions. Where to begin? At the moment my thoughts are disorganized and I am feeling a little uninspired, so I will just start writing and see where it goes. I expect this to be a series. And to kick things off, perhaps the most popular question ever:
For some reason, many interviewers love to start with this question.
- This question favors people who are comfortable sharing personal, open-ended information with complete strangers whose purpose is to pass judgment on them. Unless that comfort and skill set is a core function of the position you’re hiring for, there is no need to test for it.
- Hot Tip: Make sure the interview process and questions test for traits and abilities a person would need for the position. If they test for unnecessary traits and skills, you’ll be unintentionally screening out whole swathes of great candidates.
- This question also favors people who have been rewarded in life and in their careers for talking BIG about themselves. They will be the people best equipped to answer this question quickly and well. This question will likely be much more difficult for people with marginalized identities, e.g., people of color, disabled folks, queer folks, low-income folks, women, etc. To survive, marginalized folks have often had to learn to take up less space and to say little about themselves. Indeed, they may have been criticized and punished for asserting their worth and skills in the workplace. Additionally, in some cultures it is not appropriate to draw so much attention by talking BIG about yourself.
- Hot Tip: It may be impossible to be culturally neutral and level the playing field for marginalized folks. But there are many questions to choose from that get closer to achieving those goals than this one!
- How are you expecting the person to answer the question? How is it relevant to the job?
- Hot Tip: Role play your interview questions. If you can’t figure out how to answer a question, or if you find yourself uncomfortable answering it, it’s probably not an appropriate interview question.
- Hot Tip: Make sure your questions encourage interviewees to share content that assists you in determining their ability to do the job. For instance, instead of this vague, open-ended question, you might ask interviewees how their skills and experience prepare them for the job as it’s been described.
You can ask all the multi-part questions you want. Just make sure you allot enough time for your interviewees to answer all the parts of the questions.
Below is a verbatim example of 1 of 5 multi-part questions that interviewees were expected to answer. All 5 questions were similarly complex! The interviewees had less than 30 minutes to answer the 5 questions because (a) the first 5+ minutes were devoted to introductions of the interview panelists, and (b) there was a final 6th question: “Do you have any questions of us or is there anything you would like to share that we have not discussed?”
- Describe your education, experience, and give specific examples working in the following areas:
- Executive support to managers
- Maintaining web site and organizational charts
- Coordinating events and scheduling
- Coordinating projects
- Community outreach and communications from customer inquiries and complaints.
- Policy development
- Facilitating moderate to complex guidelines, processes and procedures and processes.
Hot Tip: Different people have different communication styles. Different communication styles make a team strong. To accommodate different communication styles, allow 3–5 minutes for an answer to a moderately complex question. Remember that’s 3–5 minutes for each sub-question, i.e., per each of the 7 bullet points in this example!
Hot Tip, Step 1: Say you’ve allotted 30 minutes for the interview as per this example. To determine how much time the interviewee actually has to answer your questions, subtract 10 minutes for opening/introductions, closing/next steps, and any glitches that might come up.
Hot Tip, Step 2: Now try answering the questions yourself in the actual time your interviewee has. If you can’t do it without some breathing room, then neither can a nervous interviewee. You’ll need to cut your questions or adjust your interview times.
Hot Tip: If your interview time slot doesn’t actually have enough time for the interviewee to ask you any questions, don’t pretend like it does. In our example, I doubt many candidates had time to catch their breath, let alone ask a thoughtful question or share additional information about themselves.
Allowing interviewees to ask questions is an essential part of the interview process and should not be crammed in as if an afterthought. Expect a forthcoming post on this topic!
Hot Tip: Questions should be used to assess the candidates’ ability to do the job. Unless their music tastes matter to the job, this question is at best irrelevant. More likely, it screens out people who are different from the current team, assuring homogeneity. What if your favorite music isn’t from the 90’s? What if you don’t know what jam music is? What if your favorite jam isn’t music at all, but rather strawberry jam?
You don’t have to think too long before you realize not only does this kind of question select for homogeneity. It also lends itself to discrimination.
Have a silly or problematic interview question to share?
Please do share it and tell us what’s wrong with it!
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