CONSTRUCTING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

In recent editions we have looked at the right type and style of questions to use to successfully establish whether your interviewee is of the calibre that you are looking for and established that preparation prior to the interview is essential to ensure that you recruit the right person. This preparation culminates in preparing interview questions that will get to the detail of work the candidate actually has done and whether they were successful or otherwise whilst performing other roles.

As I discussed earlier in this blog, when the need to recruit someone originally arises, the sensible thing to do is to create a job description detailing:

• the results that we would require from a new employee during their first few months of employment,  to enable us to measure whether or not we had made a good hiring decision;
• the behaviours we needed to see from previous roles so that that we could be confident that the candidate would achieve the results we expected.

The effort you had to put in at the start of the process creating that job description now starts to pay off, as you can base your interview questions around it.

The process flows as follows:

• The requirement.
• What information do you need?
• Look for a time they had to demonstrate the behaviour.
• Question the behaviour.
• Ask for in-depth detail.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is to use the example job we started out with when detailing the success and behaviour measures we expect for our job specification. In that example we defined one such measure and desired behaviour as follows:

• The requirement:

Within 30 days, the new recruit must be fully cognisant of our database and able to demonstrate an in-depth ability to perform searches and enter all conversations on it.

• So, this means the information we need is:

What is the candidate's knowledge of databases.

• And we need to look for a time they had to demonstrate the behaviour:

This can usually be found on the CV where there's a mention of using a database or storing information on it. Failing that, the first question might be "At xxx company how was customer information stored and maintained?" Or, more directly, "At xxx company did you use a database?"

• With the fact that they have used a database established, this line of enquiry then needs to extend to question the behaviour:

You want to know whether they were required to input detailed information and extract the information they required. So, the next question might be: "Can you describe in detail how you used the database?"

• And you then want to follow this up by asking for  in-depth information:

This could be a seemingly simple question, such as "How did you ensure the data you added was accurate?"

Once you have followed this process of finding out whether they have carried out the activity you want and displayed the right behaviours in doing so, you should then seek to obtain as many examples and as much detail as possible. The idea is to guard against making any assumptions.

This style of follow-up example questioning follows a simple process:

• Ask for the example
• Ask for detail so that you can understand the example and keep the answer on track to provide the information you are looking for.
• Ask about the actions they undertook.
• Ask for more detail so that you understand their actions and why they took them.
• Ask about the results of their actions.

So, for the above requirement concerning using databases, the questioning would be along the lines of:

• What was the hardest task you had to carry out in using the database?
• What made this more challenging than the other tasks?
• Can you take me through the steps you had to go through to carry out the task?
• How did you decide that this was the right process?
• What else did you try?
• What was the result?

Once mastered, this is a simple process that you can always follow for all the activities and behaviours you want from a potential employee. It means your questions will have been prepared in advance and, crucially, will be the same for all of the interviewees. This means you will be able to accurately compare the answers from all the candidates afterwards.

If an interviewer is ill-prepared, experience has shown that interviewing last is the best time from a candidate’s perspective they are more likely to be hired (all other things being equal) simply because they are the most fresh in the recruiter's mind. By taking the trouble to prepare and then ask the same questions of every candidate, and then writing down their answers, you will be able to make meaningful comparisons between everyone you've seen.

Next Time:

Situations which can lead the interview astray and how to bring it back on track.