Employer interview questions to ask candidates

Ask

What three professional achievements do you want to accomplish in the next five years?’

Why?

‘Where do you see yourself in the next five years?’ is often greeted with a vague answer about how the candidate just wants to be successful in whatever they’re doing.

This alternate question encourages them to be specific.

Asking for professional achievements will enable you to bring to light what really matters to your candidate.

If all of their accomplishments focus on training, you can be sure that this is a very important aspect for them.

If they focus on leading a department or getting promoted, you can be certain this is where their motivation lies.

Encouraging the candidate to define just three things also gives the answer a finite end-point which prevents it from becoming too convoluted.

Ask

‘What attracts you to our company over ‘competitor x’?’

Why?

This question requires the candidate to really think, rather than just reeling off reasons they’ve read on the ‘company culture’ section of your website.

They will need to make a comparison, which demands some genuine thoughtfulness about your business.

This should also reveal if your interviewee is passionate about your sector.

If they are, they’ve probably considered applying to some of your competitors, so should have both a basic knowledge of them and how you differ.

Ask

“What do you struggle with/feel you are least competent at in your current/previous job?”

Why?

‘What is your greatest weakness?’ will commonly be greeted with clichés like, ‘I’m such a perfectionist – I like things to be just-so’, or the classic, ‘I find it really difficult to switch off from work’.

Asking people for a specific flaw cuts through the waffle and encourages candidates to give a concrete example of something they’re not great at, meaning you’ll get a more honest and relevant answer.

Ask:

“Tell me about a time in which you succeeded, what motivated you?”

Why?

In at number four is the age-old interview question ‘What motivates you?’.

The majority of candidates will respond with a short sentence like ‘I’m motivated by success’, or, ‘I’m motivated by seeing the results of my hard work’.

Asking interviewees for a specific example of how they’ve been motivated in the past requires them to dig a little deeper, and will stop these one-sentence answers in their tracks.

Ask:

“How would colleagues describe you, and what has shaped their opinions?”

Why?

Most people in an interview situation will describe themselves as a hard-working perfectionist. No one is ever going to say that they are a mediocre candidate!

And asking your interviewee what other people think of them won’t single-handedly deliver a more candid answer.

Candidates can just as easily lie about what others say about them e.g. ‘My boss used to say I was the best employee he’s ever had the pleasure of working with!’

So, asking what shaped their colleagues’ opinions will help provide more detail to their answer.

The candidate has to back up their answers with evidence, which is more difficult to improvise on the spot – e.g. rather than just stating that people think they are articulate, they have to say why people think that

i.e. ‘My line manager thought that I was articulate; I had to deliver weekly presentations to senior members of staff who complimented him about how I communicated complex business ideas’.