5 Questions To Help You Get To Know The Candidate – Part 1

If you’re part of the hiring team for your organisation, it can be a challenge to come up with questions that are different to the standard ones that often get rolled out: ‘Why are you leaving your current role?’ ‘What are your strengths?’ and ‘What are your weaknesses?’

In this report, we look at some questions that you can ask to find out more about the skills and approach that the interviewee would bring to your organisation.

1. What’s the most interesting fact about you that wouldn’t know by reading your CV?

This is a fantastic way to find out more about the candidate and what they value. Getting to know the personal side of your candidate is a great way to gain an understanding of whether the person is going to be a good fit for your organisation’s culture. Finding out about hobbies outside of work, how they enjoy spending their time and what personal achievements they have can give you a real insight.

2) What are the first 3 things that you would do if we hired you?

Steve Jobs famously advocated concentrating on key tasks and being brave enough to disregard other tasks in order to concentrate on key actions and deliverables. By asking a question which is a variation on this theme, you can get an understanding of the candidate’s thought processes on priorities and equally as important, whether they have spent time thinking about your organisation and the role that they could play in it.

3) Have you done any research on our company?

This is a closely linked to the question above and can be asked in conjunction with each other.  These questions will clearly show you how committed they are to the interview process and, by extension, how willing they are to go the extra mile. This can be an important consideration w hen assessing a number of candidates.

4) How would you rate me as an interviewer on a scale of 1 to 10?

This is a question that is proving to be increasingly popular.  As it is a tricky question for the candidate to answer, it can give you an insight into how they would deal with a difficult situation. This question also can give you an insight into how honest they are and whether they can deliver constructive criticism.

5) What’s the one task you would enjoy doing for the rest of your career?

This is an interesting way to get to understand how the candidate sees their job and the role that they would do for you.  They could refer to a specific area of their current role that they love doing.  Finding out what that is and why gives you a clear view of their assessment of their own skill sets and abilities.