How to Ask the Right Interview Questions

Hiring new staff can be a hefty investment. Additionally, it is important to hire staff that has values and work attitudes that align with the company. Thus, it is important to ask the right interview questions that will narrow down on the perfect candidate. Here are some important tips to keep in mind when you start asking interview questions to find that perfect employee.

Identify the characteristics of your ideal employee

Before finding the perfect candidate, you need to create an image of your perfect employee. When you create this ideal candidate, you need to list the ideal attributes, values and qualities that this ideal employee will have. This is an important step as it would help give you an idea of what types of questions you would need to ask. However, it is also vital to be realistic about the ideal employee, creating an image of candidate that is perfect and idealistic would likely lead to disappointment as chances of hiring such candidate would be almost impossible.

Rank the characteristics of the ideal employee

This is step adds on from the idea of not being too unrealistic about the perfect candidate. It is likely that the candidate you will hire will not completely fulfill every single ideal attitude and characteristic that you want, so it is a good idea to rank the attributes of the ideal candidate from most to least important so you will know which qualities to prioritise over others..

Formulate the you questions

The next step is to formulate questions that are designed to see whether the interviewee has the values and characteristics that you have ranked as most important. For example, if coding experience is one of your highest priority, then you can ask the interviewee about their level of coding expertise, what coding programs they have used, or a time when they had used coding to successfully complete a project.

Use behavioural question

Behavioural questions allow interviewees to highlight specific experiences. These types of questions are useful for interviews because experiences can give great insight into how interviewees respond to certain situations. Research has also shown that the rate of successful hires using behaviour-based interviewing is 75% compared to traditional questions which is only 19%. So asking questions that asks interviewees to recall an event, such as “tell me about a time…”, “describe…” or “give me an instance when…” can be helpful in gaining greater understanding of the interviewee’s character, skills and professional attitude.

Avoid discriminatory questions

This may seem like an obvious requirement, however it is still important to keep in mind to not ask questions that may imply that the interviewees would also be judged based on factors irrelevant to their work such as their relationship status, age or ethnicity. Additionally, be careful of how you phrase your questions as it may come off as discriminatory. For example, instead of asking “do you have a disability?”, which sounds as if you are going to judge them if they do have a disability, you can instead ask “are you physically able to carry out the required labour?” which is more diplomatic and relevant to job requirements.