Job interviews are an opportunity for employers to go beyond the resume and get a solid idea about the candidates they have previously met only on paper.
These in-person experiences also allow candidates to form an impression of the company they might join.
Often, the chance is wasted by inexperienced or poorly trained interviewers asking questions that are hopelessly out of date, that don’t reveal much of relevance about the candidate, or are asked because they are regarded as “standard” queries –prompting equally standard replies.
This is the second of a three-article series written to help hiring managers get better results from their interviews. In this post, we offer 5 empty questions and why you should avoid them.
Interview Question 1: Where do you see yourself in five years?
This question is of little use to either the hiring manager or the candidate. It’s a question intended to uncover a candidate’s ambition and commitment. But in today’s job market, five years is a long time. It is also a timeframe likely to be impacted by unpredictable events.
The candidate’s career outlook may change, for their personal situation might change. The company may not provide enough growth opportunities, or the candidate may find more attractive opportunities than what the company can offer at any given time. There are simply too many variables to make any answer to this question likely to yield information useful to the hiring manager.
Instead of asking this question, focus on questions relevant to the future needs of the position, and consider ways to allow the candidate to reflect on their commitment to company success over a shorter timeframe. One year would be a more appropriate period for assessment, and likely to produce more reality-based responses.
Interview Question 2: What’s your biggest weakness?
Like the previous question, this is both overused, out-of-date, and offers little substantive evidence of the candidate, who has likely given a standardized answer to this question before in prior interviews.
It may also reflect poorly on the interviewer to use this question. In 2011, the Harvard Business Review cited it as “The Worst Interview Question”. The article goes on to reference how it can be harmful to the rapport you are building with a candidate, and only serves to elicit fabricated responses. Also like the previous example, this question generates little information on how the candidate will perform in the position.
The candidate response likely will reflect an over-commitment to the job or admitting to some minor personality quirk.
Interview Question 3: If you were an animal (or a color, or a season, etc.) what would you be?
This question is often a light-hearted attempt to gain insight into a candidate’s personality—but to what end? If handled constructively it’s just another opportunity for a candidate to enumerate qualities that the employer wants to hear.
Responses that reflect the perceived positive traits of a chosen animal, color, season, etc. are safe territory for an answer that won’t land candidates in hot water. Exhibiting diligent work habits or beavers or honeybees, for example, is a safe choice. But what does that really tell the interviewer about how the candidate will perform on the job?
A better alternative for the hiring manager is to ask practical and specific questions, such as how a candidate handled a difficult situation in a previous job, or how they would tackle a hypothetical conundrum in the role for which they are applying.
Interview Question 4: Why are you the best person for the job?
The redundancy of this question is deafening. If a candidate is called for an interview, an attractive resume has likely been augmented with a persuasive cover letter and, possibly, a successful phone screening.
A hiring manager must have encountered all this information for an interview to take place. Rather than asking for a candidate to give glowing promises of their future potential, time would be better spent asking them to give evidence of it, via conversation about the industry and the candidate’s approach to specific responsibilities, which will generate replies that give a broader sense of how the person will perform in the role.
Interview Question 5: Why do you want to work at our company?
This question is more-or-less another version of the previous question. The resume shows that a candidate is qualified for a job, the cover letter displays the person’s motivations and goals regarding the job.
Here again, the hiring manager could make better use of the allotted time by delving into a candidate’s personality through conversation; otherwise, candidates may simply list a perfunctory collection of a company’s attributes in accordance with what they think the hiring manager wants to hear.
Better Questions Are a Better Use of Time
Easy-to-use online employment applications, ubiquitous social media and software that helps refine the pool of qualified applicants means that interviewers already have much of the information they need about a candidate’s suitability before an interview takes place.
During an interview, time is better spent on validating that information via discussion, determining if a candidate will fit into the workplace’s culture or can think on their feet in tense situations and solve problems quickly and creatively.
The most productive interviews require hiring managers to draft well-planned, high-quality interview questions to lead the conversation in productive directions.
