Best interview questions

[Jon12345]

I am about to interview a couple of candidates for a job. Is there an online list of good interview questions to ask and the reason to ask them? I am new at this.

Thanks,

Jon

 

[Shaunyboy3383]

depends what the job is for, i think its better to make questions more specific around the job role rather than general questions.

Whatever you do, you want to challenge them and make them think on their feet

 

[Rob Holmes]

I'm sure there are lists of questions around the web, google may help.

I'll add my bit.. You must have a profile of the ideal applicant? e.g. Skills, attitude, social skills, experience etc - Maybe base some questions around qualifying them against the profile - make sure they give examples of each aspect that you want qualifying.

I would also check VERY carefully the questions you are NOT allowed to ask and comments you are not allowed to make as this could land you in hot water too.

Hope this helps,

Rob

 

[Rob Holmes]

I had a poke around and found this..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/201-Answers-Toughest-Interview-Questions/dp/007016357X

Should give you examples of good questions and why they are asked!

Rob

 

[Tempest]

Think of the most difficult situation their potential job could put them in and ask them how they'd deal with it. Don't penalise them for taking a moment to think about it. That is a sign of someone who won't make rash decisions.

The usual ones are asking them to give an example of when they have worked well on their own or in a team (if they can't account for both, you have to wonder whether they are a, someone who isolates themselves or b, is someone who lacks initiative and piggybacks on others success). What they feel they can bring to your company (nuff said). Where they see themselves in 5 years time (Running their own business/MD of your rival etc. are all bad signs, progression within your company is a good one as it shows they don't think of you as a stepping stone.

If you want to PM me or email me at arabellamilla (at) gmail . com I'd love to be a stand in interviewee for you, you can bounce questions off me and I'll do my best to give you a model answer...

 

[franco_24]

Well this kind of depends on what the job is. You would have a completely different line of approach for a sales person over an administrator and a different set of questions for an accounts clerk or a driver.

If you are talking about a member of staff in sales or customer facing then they must have excellent communication skills and be able to think on their feet. Hence you might ask;

Give me an instance at work in the past where you faced a challenge and had to overcome certain obstacles. How did you go about it and what was the outcome?

These type of questions, of which there are many, are the most common interview techniques of the corporates. It prompts the individual to express themselves and provide some evidence that the lift goes to the top floor with them. The ability to come back quickly with a response is generally a good sign but some quite daft answers can come up if people panic. Deathly silence is also embarassing as the candidate tries memory recall only to find there is nothing challenging that they can offer.

You need to prepare for the type of job on offer so any further help or assistance from anyone is pretty irrelevant until that fact is known.

 

[Write My Site]

Best interview question I've ever been asked is: "How many shoes are there in the UK?"

 

[Aspect Investments]

Yeah, i think the type of job, has a lot to do with what type of questions you ask.

For example. If you were interviewing for a position of an undertaker, you may want to ask the question, "do you have any objection to working with dead people".

This sort of question, would not normally be asked in an interview situation. Unless you are interviewing for a job at Mcdonalds of course.

 

[Aspect Investments]

Best interview question I've ever been asked is: "How many shoes are there in the UK?"

And your response was, do you mean how many pairs of shoes? Or how many shoes in total?

 

[Astaroth]

There were so many classic ones from oxford and cambridge uni interviews - my interview was predominately discussions on the then change in gun law to ban hand guns

It depends on what the role is and its level as to what are appropriate and challenging questions. My personal preference for non-grunt roles is always to have a senario based question with a discussion afterwards on what they did and why they did it. For project managers it was generally to give them some data and a very short brief and ask them to write a terms of reference/ project plan. For business analysts again give them a briefing and ask them to write a strategy for requirements gathering. Whilst I have never done sales interviews the typical ones are "sell this pen to me" type things.

Whilst the "answers" are of interest it is as much the discussion about why they decided they didnt need to speak to the key stakeholder on their requirements or why there was no mention of data migration from the old system to the new etc.

The other advantage is that it isnt possible for them to have a prepared answer which someone else has written and they have learnt to repeat parrot fashion/ shows ability to think on their feet.

 

[Rob Holmes]

Best interview question I've ever been asked is: "How many shoes are there in the UK?"

I would seriously question working for someone that thought they were clever asking this sort of question. That would be a clear case of the employer failing the interview.

Unless of course the job was something to do with shoes!

Rob

 

[Tempest]

I was put off one when an interviewer asked:

'If you could be any type of animal, which would you be?'

Now seriously, what would be the correct answer there then?

 

[Peter Bowen]

I've copied this from my customer resources section from the staffing system. I hope it's of some value.

Cheers

Pete

HIRING PROCESS

Standard Documents

• Job Advertisement Template
• Response Summary Sheet
• Interview Guidelines This great list of interview questions comes courtesy of: Phillipa Mitchell RED PEPPER BOOKS [email protected] Tel: +27 (011) 768-1141/5 Fax: +27 (011) 768-1110 http://www.redpepperbooks.co.za For a customer service position:
  1. What three words would your best friend use to describe you?
  2. What three words would your current employer use to describe you
  3. What did you learn from your last job, or your current job (specific skills etc)
  4. What books have you read lately?
  5. What motivates you?
  6. How did you get your last job?
  7. Knowledge about function/ Company/ Industry; Ability to link experience/ personal traits to the job
  8. Why should we select you for this position
  9. Why do you want to work at this company?
  10. What do you like about our company?
  11. How do your skills relate to our needs?
  12. What is your greatest accomplishment?
  13. What is your greatest disappointment?
  14. Tell me something you like to do, or something you’re proud of, that you’ve never told anyone about before
  15. How long will it take you to make a contribution to our company?
  16. What is the most significant problem you’ve faced in your life so far and how did you address it?
  17. Describe a typical day at a previous job
  18. With what kinds of people do you work best?
  19. Have you ever been part of a great team? What did they have that made them work successfully together?
  20. At your last job, how much of the work did you perform independently?
  21. What did you like and dislike about your last job?
  22. What do you like about work?
  23. Describe your ideal boss
  24. In what type of work environment would you flourish?
  25. What do expect to experience in this job that you did not experience in your past jobs?
  26. Tell me about the best and worst bosses you’ve had
  27. Tell me where you want to be in 5 years
  28. What’s the difference between a job and a career
  29. What do you know about our company?
  30. What type of research did you do for this interview?
  31. Why are you interested in customer service
  32. Why do you feel you will be successful at customer service?
  33. What constructive criticism have you received from employers?
  34. You don’t have the necessary experience for this position – why do you believe you could handle this job?
  35. Are there any questions that I didn’t ask you that you feel I should have?
  36. What questions do you have?
  For a marketing position:
  1. What three words would your best friend use to describe you?
  2. What three words would your current employer use to describe you
  3. What did you learn from your last job, or your current job (specific skills etc)
  4. What books have you read lately?
  5. What motivates you?
  6. How did you get your last job?
  7. Knowledge about function/ Company/ Industry; Ability to link experience/ personal traits to the job
  8. Why should we select you for this position
  9. Why do you want to work at this company?
  10. What do you like about our company?
  11. How do your skills relate to our needs?
  12. What is your greatest accomplishment?
  13. What is your greatest disappointment?
  14. Tell me something you like to do, or something you’re proud of, that you’ve never told anyone about before
  15. How long will it take you to make a contribution to our company?
  16. What is the most significant problem you’ve faced in your life so far and how did you address it?
  17. Where do you get your ideas from?
  18. Describe a typical day at a previous job
  19. With what kinds of people do you work best?
  20. Have you ever been part of a great team? What did they have that made them work successfully together?
  21. At your last job, how much of the work did you perform independently?
  22. What did you like and dislike about your last job?
  23. What do you like about work?
  24. Describe your ideal boss
  25. In what type of work environment would you flourish?
  26. What do expect to experience in this job that you did not experience in your past jobs?
  27. Tell me about the best and worst bosses you’ve had
  28. Tell me where you want to be in 5 years
  29. What’s the difference between a job and a career
  30. What do you know about our company?
  31. What type of research did you do for this interview?
  32. Why are you interested in marketing?
  33. Why do you feel you will be successful at marketing
  34. What constructive criticism have you received from employers?
  35. You don’t have the necessary experience for this position – why do you believe you could handle this job?
  36. If I have you an elephant, where would you hide it?
  37. If it rained music, what would grow?
  38. Tell me about a company that you feel has been successful with a unique marketing strategy?
  39. Are there any questions that I didn’t ask you that you feel I should have?
  40. What questions do you have?
  For a bookkeeper:
  1. Why are you leaving your current job? / Why have you taken a break from the workforce?
  2. What was your favourite job to date and why?
  3. What did you enjoy most and least about your last job?
  4. Why did you choose your profession?
  5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
  6. What do you know about our company?
  7. Why are you applying for this position?
  8. What specialised skills or talents do you have to offer?
  9. What of your characteristics make you a good bookkeeper?
  10. How do you decide when to ask for help?
  11. If I were a supplier asking for payment, how would you tell the supplier that we couldn’t pay them right now?
  12. Assuming money is available, when would you pay an account?
  13. What do you expect to do when you discover that a customer has overpaid an invoice?
  14. In Excel, how do you change the width of a column
  15. What characteristics do you like best and least about [whatever accounting package you use] software?
  16. Do you prefer working on your own or under supervision?
  17. Do you prefer working in a team or on your own?
  18. What kind of work environment are you looking for?
  19. What new skills or experiences do you want from your next job
  20. How do you deal with stress?
  21. Describe your vision of a “good” boss. Describe the boss that would get the very best work from you
  22. If I were to ask your current boss what your greatest strength is, what would he or she tell me?
  23. If you were limited to just one person to get advice and help from, which person would you choose and why?
  24. Describe a time when you were asked to do something you weren’t trained to do. How did you handle it?
  25. What would make you love coming to work here everyday
  26. What is your greatest fear about this opportunity?
  27. Assuming you came to work here. One year from now you go home one Friday evening thinking that accepting this job was the best thing you ever did. What happened during the year for you to feel that way?
  28. Is there any question that I haven’t asked you that I should have?
  29. Do you have any questions for me?
• Interview Notes Template
• Employment Contract/Job Offer TemplateRequirements for employment contracts vary from country to country and even within industries. We strongly recommend that you get professional advice when having your employment contract template drawn up to avoid falling foul of the law and possibly inccurring costs far in excess of those associated with having the templates professionally prepared. Job specific clauses can be added from the Position Contracts.
• New Employee File
• Hiring File
• Hiring Project Cover Sheet

 

I was asked at a job interview (for my first IT support role, years ago) "What quality, in one word, will you bring to this job?"

I answered "Initiative" in about 2 seconds flat, without even thinking. The interviewer nearly fell off his seat at the speed of the answer, and I got the job.

I am also a big fan of asking applicants to fill in a small aptitude type of test - some can talk a great deal, but can be shown up in one of those.

 

[simonr]

I passed this one to my wife who's a head of HR somewhere: basically she was running out of the door and didn't give me a useful answer but did give me this tip.... whatever questions you pick, jot them down before the interviews, otherwise you'll forget them in the heat of the presentation. What's more, make sure you ask the same questions to all the candidates.....

.... and avoid the illegal questions!

S

 

...basically she was running out of the door....

What exactly did you say to her?

 

It strikes me that if you don't know what questions to ask,then maybe you don't know enough about the business you are running

Earl

 

[Write My Site]

And your response was, do you mean how many pairs of shoes? Or how many shoes in total?

That's exactly how I responded!

 

[Write My Site]

I would seriously question working for someone that thought they were clever asking this sort of question. That would be a clear case of the employer failing the interview.

Unless of course the job was something to do with shoes!

Rob

Well, the job was in publishing, so nothing to do with shoes, and I did in fact work for the company for two years. I'm glad I did, too, as my former boss is now one of my biggest clients

When I later asked my boss why he had asked the question he said he always put a 'guestimate' question forward to candidates to test their ability to think laterally and under pressure.

 

[Lisette]

here are a number of articles you might find helpful - including intervies structure and also questions. And if you go to the blog on the site it will give you some questions and an answer guide!

The aim is to try to find out what they have done in the past, how they went about it, etc and not what they might theorectically do in the future.

 

[profitxchange]

try what difference had they made in their last role?

What have they achieved in life and in their employment

What are their aspirations and ambitions

 

[Steve Roberts]

In my experience, how well someone interviews bears no relation to whether they can do the job or not - unless the job involves being interviewed all day!

I currently employ over 120 people and I can honestly say that the majority of my best staff didn't interview well. What I look for is a positive "attitude", rather than a polished performance. As such, there's no point in trying to trip people up, but rather try and see what makes them tick. To relax interviewees I say to them "my best staff didn't interview well so if you get the job it means you probably didn't either".

Lastly, one word REFERENCES. Get them and check them!!!

 

[LisaHoughton]

............In my experience, how well someone interviews bears no relation to whether they can do the job or not - unless the job involves being interviewed all day!...............

I completely agree ... you really have to develop and trust your 'gut' instinct!
Lisa

 

I was once asked if I would mind having my photograph taken. I should mention I was asked after a camera was whipped out from nowhere and a photograph taken before I had a chance to realise what was happening!

I have been asked some very strange things at interviews...

 

[TSx]

I was put off one when an interviewer asked:

'If you could be any type of animal, which would you be?'

Now seriously, what would be the correct answer there then?

I've been asked that one as well - the last interview I went to (I got the job ) was amazingly easy. There were 2 candidates, we got given a list of 7 questions to ask each other - the interviewer went out the room, we (the candidates) chatted about the answers, then when he came back 30 minutes later we had to 'present' each other. Then there was a short internet test, a literacy test and a numerical test. Non of these seemed to matter since the person I took the tests with couldn't spell and could only answer 2 questions out of 20 on the Internet test, and still got the job

by the way, I said a unicorn, to show that nothings impossible - really was the first thing I could think of after watching a segment on 8 out of 10 cats the day before where they tal
ked about unicorns

 

[Cornish Steve]

Do a Google search on "structured interviews"; there are some good articles.

As for my own ideas, I'd determine how well prepared each person is for the interview: "If you were in my shoes right now, what's the first question you'd ask and why?" If they took time to prepare, candidates would know what to say right away. If they are just winging it, they'd be stuck. If there's a painful silence, follow up with "I'm sure you prepared well for this interview, so what questions did you expect me to ask?"

 

[simonr]

Lisa says you should go with your gut instinct and there's a lot to that - but be careful that it doesn't open you up to accusations of bias etc. I'm afraid in the current legal circumstance it's always a good idea to have a bit more of a structure to your system than 'gut instinct'.

S

 

[Jon12345]

Thanks for all the great reponses guys. I loved the list of questions put forward too.

My situation might be slightly different in that I am hiring someone from the Philippines and they will be working from home. So I have a cultural issue, a trust issue and also I cannot see them face to face.

In what way might this alter my approach?

Thanks,

Jon

 

[sjbeale]

You should have a job description and person spec in place and from these documents write questions around the skills, experience, knowledge and qualifications you are looking for.

Ask the same questions of all the candidates and note down their answers and score them accordingly. Then choose the highest scoring candidate.

You should not ask any discriminatory questions eg do not ask a woman candidate if she is married and is going to have children! Avoid any questions around race, disability, age, etc.

 

[ExpertSteve]

During the past few years I have conducted alot of interviews. Just a couple of points to add to the above.

To get the most out of an interviewee make them feel comfortable. Try some small talk based around their CV, ie where they live, how long it took them to get here, did they find you OK, can you get them something to drink, perhaps get them just to tell you a bit about what they are currently doing.

Do not take on a weak candidate because they are the best of a bad bunch - bide your time and get more applicants.

Be honest about the job - if it has some downsides, mention them eg there are some elements of repitition, or there is some lifting involved - don't try and con them into accepting.

Where possible ask them what they have done not what they would do - experienced based questions generally provide better insights.

If you have a probationary period, use it - try to address any performance issues early and directly and if absolutely necessary terminate and start again.

Hope this helps !!

 

[betterlanguages]

I've done a lot of interviewing. I like questions that show the candidate's ability to think on their feet, this has to be relevent to the job though. Questions on weaknesses can be interesting, e.g. "whats your biggest weakness in a work setting"? Very tricky to answer, a wise candidate will probably stear clear, e.g. "some people think I work too hard".

Important to make sure thy match the required skills, so you do need to do some profiling against the job requirements, otherwise you could recruit someone good at interviews, but with the wrong skill set.

Hope this helps

Mike

 

[jerryvn01]

There were so many classic ones from oxford and cambridge uni interviews - my interview was predominately discussions on the then change in gun law to ban hand guns

It depends on what the role is and its level as to what are appropriate and challenging questions. My personal preference for non-grunt roles is always to have a senario based question with a discussion afterwards on what they did and why they did it. For project managers it was generally to give them some data and a very short brief and ask them to write a terms of reference/ project plan. For business analysts again give them a briefing and ask them to write a strategy for requirements gathering. Whilst I have never done sales interviews the typical ones are "sell this pen to me" type things.

Whilst the "answers" are of interest it is as much the discussion about why they decided they didnt need to speak to the key stakeholder on their requirements or why there was no mention of data migration from the old system to the new etc.

The other advantage is that it isnt possible for them to have a prepared answer which someone else has written and they have learnt to repeat parrot fashion/ shows ability to think on their feet.

Hi,

I do not agreed with you. Any way, your ideal make me thinking about some thing for my project.

Please try to keep posting. Tks and best regards

 

[jerryvn01]

Hi,

there many wonderful,thanks for your time

 

[OssianTV]

This is true
Q: What can you bring to this organisation
A: Ive got some teatowels at home I havent used

Classic

 

[Nearglobal]

If you were a biscuit what type would you be any why?

 

[Rainbow Chasers']

This is true
Q: What can you bring to this organisation
A: Ive got some teatowels at home I havent used

Classic

Many years ago, I knew a lad that secured a job with an answer like that.

Q: What can you bring to the company that no other candidate can?
A: A pink Triumph Herald V8 Convertible.

These answers are handy as much as they are risky - as they do make you memorable when there are many candidates....they could also be mistaken for sarcasm...you need to be able to read your interviewers well to try this.

I think some weird questions are thrown in to see how you handle suprising questions or confrontations. Again, it depends on the job you are going for. Some may add a slightly offensive question when interviewing for a environment that has alot of banter - this serves to test your temperament.

I think throwing in honesty, reliability, integrity questions as well are good - but don't make them too obvious. The wallet in the street will just be too glarily obvious to get an honest or accurate answer. You could ask if they had perks in their previous jobs as a way of twisting it.

Employers are also very shy of considering those that have run their own business. Firstly in case they outshine the employer, and as they have the knowledge to start a conflicting venture. But on the other hand, those that have been self employed as usually quite company minded, understand the ethics and will work along quite happily rather than slack off at the given chance. They are less likely to call in sick and work efficiently, customer service skills are good as they are used to it. They will be more confident - and it is up to you to outweigh the strengths with the threats.....but it does not make them less of a candidate. It does make a difference however, if you are looking for point and shoot staff with no initiative - as these will be less than ideal.

 

[GRDCredit]

I love these threads.

I am going to take a guess that the interviews have now been completed, the successful candidate started, rewarded for long service with a carriage clock and has now retired!!

 

[charcinders]

Best interview question I've ever been asked is: "How many shoes are there in the UK?"

Oh I like that! That would tell you much more about the candidate than stock questions like "where do you see yourself in 5 years time?", which they will have a rehearsed answer for.


I think the answer is about 500 million, by the way, excluding slippers.

 

[midgetman]

Most stupid question I was ever asked in an interview

If you had a million pounds what would you do?

Reply, Hmmm, well I wouldnt be sitting here being interviewed for a job that is only paying 15k

I still got the job though

 

[luvbusiness]

Q What quality can you bring to the company

A Motivational skills.Everybody says they have to work a lot harder when I am around.


A Homer Simpson quote