4 Unusual Tips to Asking Better interview Questions

Asking the right interview questions is tricky. Far too often interviewers rely on played-out overused questions that they were asked when they interviewed for their first real job out of college. And understandably so, we have a lot of stuff on our plate and too often we find ourselves scrambling to come up with the right questions 15min before we have a pivotal interview. Worse far too often interviewers and interviewees are too invested in “looking good” that they miss the whole purpose of the interview in the first place – finding the right fit. This article aims to help you prepare against that, so you can walk into your next interview confident that you will gain the key insights necessary to make an appropriate hire with four unconventional interview tips.

Tip #1– Ask questions with purpose, and be prepared.

 Nothing can derail an interview worse than asking an unnecessary question just to ask it. Listen to yourself next time you are interviewing and you may catch yourself asking a question simply to fill the dead space. Stop doing that! When your ego is talking you are putting “looking good” above acquiring the knowledge you need to make the right hire. To avoid this we must first determine your objective. For example “I want to understand whether this person could garner the respect of those they lead" once we have the intention set the question comes into clarity. For example, if my objective is to determine whether this applicant can “garner the respect of those they lead'' a question like “In the past how have you dealt with a difficult team member that you’ve been asked to lead?”

To assist in this process we recommend before an interview outlining the key objectives of the interview. Based on those objectives, create two to three questions to achieve that objective. We understand that this may sound a bit elementary, but far too often interviewers are just “winging it”, or writing down a list of questions that sounds good but aren’t intentional.

Tip #2 – Slow down, and get curious.

Your outline is a great starting point, and once we have that in place that point we need to guard against getting too robotic. If we are paying too much attention to what we are going to say next or proving a point rather than listening to the applicant with curiosity, we may miss opportunities to gain greater clarity on vital information.

View each of your outlined questions as launch pads to listen and have even better information than the initial question may provide us. When you hear one of those opportunities present themselves and you don’t have some eloquent insightful question come to mind that's okay, we’ve got you, use this annoyingly simple statement to drive deeper. “So [repeat back the phrase they said that piqued your interest] tell me more about that” I know sounds too simple right? But what this does is it allows your applicant some latitude to highlight the important information. Or if there isn’t much substance behind that initial claim, oftentimes forcing them to expound it offers you insight to see through the BS they were spouting before. 

Tip #3- Look for patterns, then look for impressions

A methodically structured approach to an interview reveals a pattern about the applicant's skill sets, character, and emotional quotient. Conversely, a haphazard approach will only leave you with general impressions about the candidate and not much substance from which to make a decision.

Patterns in the past predict future action and therefore results. 

It’s from clearly established patterns that we can develop reliable impressions (or in other words predictions) about how this candidate will operate within our organization.

We have found that the best place to establish what a candidate's patterns are is by chronologically reviewing the candidate's work history. We do this by methodically reviewing their work history with your objectives as the framework for doing so. 

Tip #4 – Shoot for discovering 4-5 traits per interview.

You may have a list of 20 traits you’d like your ideal candidate to have. Truly vetting out each of them in a single interview is unrealistic, but throughout 3 interviews is very reasonable. This is why planning and communicating with your hiring team about what your interview process will look like and defining exactly what each interview's objective is so important.  

Our recommendation is to define what traits you are looking for and whose responsibility it is to identify those traits. Mapping out the interview process something like this would be what we recommend.

During the screening interview, we are going to touch on every point briefly, this is mostly a BS check, your recruiter or hr rep should get good at sniffing out BS quickly. 

Your first interview is to discover basic culture fit, are you a fast-paced startup that needs people who can think outside the box and take initiative? Or, is your company a more established firm where you need people who can follow the proven process well and show up with energy to the office?  

The second interview is a good time to begin vetting a candidate's technical prowess, this can be done with a peer interview 

A third interview can be a great time to sus out a candidate's emotional quotient.

Our team planning session might look like this: