Hiring new people is always a challenge! Whether you’re looking for your next set of seasonal workers or you’re looking for your next 10-year employee, getting the right people in the door and on the other side of the interview table can be a daunting task.
Here are the top 7 interview questions you should ask to avoid trouble, cut through the nonsense and ensure that you’re getting good candidates in your door.
Setting Yourself Up For Success
Not all questions here will be right for your environment, but they’re a good start.
Make sure you ask the interviewee not only about their personality and ability to be a team player but also about their specific qualifications for the job opening.
It doesn’t matter if your recruitment is for seasonal work, just like Amazon’s recruitment drive underway in Derbyshire right now, or whether you’re looking for a full-time employee to run the place. Getting to know your potential new hire is critical.
Here’s what you should be asking.
Tell me about yourself?
A nice open-ended question to set the scene. If you find your candidate is a little hesitant, give them the space they need to answer and maybe a little prompt when they stop such as “what else?” or “tell me more about…”.
Active listening questions like these allow you to form a solid understanding of the job role and candidate. You will gain insight into what the job entails, their interest in the role, their experience, and how they interact with everyone around them.
What about your resume is important for this position?
This gives your candidate the chance to shine and show off their experience. It will also highlight any red flags.
Want to get a feel for how they truly are at being a team player? Listen to how they answer this question.
If they’re good at self-promotion, that’s not a bad thing as long as they don’t go overboard!
Why do you want to work here?
The answer to this question should be your key indicator of whether or not the candidate is interested in the role enough to show up on time, every day and get the job done.
You want the answer to this question to be consistent with their resume and any previous job roles they’ve held.
If you have a candidate with an impressive working history but have received a few negative reviews for timekeeping and interpersonal skills, it may be worthwhile for you to conduct more interviews with these candidates.
Why did you leave your last job?
This is a tricky question to answer, but it’s useful for you to understand what motivates the candidate to succeed, and to change.
You can understand a lot by how the candidate answers this question. Many candidates will tell you that they left their last job to pursue new opportunities, but they may actually be running from a bad situation.
Make sure you know all the details before making any decisions.
How would your boss and co-workers describe you?
This may seem like an obvious question, but it can be revealing as well.
Are they singing their praises, or are they still not sure what they’re all about?
Do co-workers say that the candidate has a specific set of skills that are tailored toward the job? Or do they align with your boss’s needs?
Having an idea of their co-workers’ opinions will allow you to put them at ease during the interview and make them more likely to give you their honest opinion.
What is your greatest accomplishment?
This question will reveal the candidate’s sense of pride, drive, and motivation.
You want to see their specific achievement, not boring generic fluff.
One of the most important traits a potential employee can possess is a drive to succeed. It’s something you can’t put on a resume, but you can learn about it when you ask this all-important interview question.
Tell me about a time you handled a difficult situation?
Be careful not to put the candidate on the spot. They may have a tendency to blow it by being nervous when they are actually a very good fit for your company.
If they’re good at dealing with conflict, that’s great, but if not, they may find answering this question difficult and that shouldn’t be a reflection on their abilities.
Dealing with people is a skill an employee needs in order to be successful; some people are excellent at their jobs but don’t have a huge amount of people skills. If people skills are not a part of the job, don’t judge them too harshly on this one.