You’ve put it off as long as you can, but now you have to hire. Until now your team has handled it all, with a little help here and there, but it’s just too much to manage by yourself. You have too many fires to put out; you need more people, good people, to handle some internal conflicts brewing, benefit and/or compensation requests, compliance (and you could use some help with strategic planning as well).

Maybe, you have to hire a human resource professional to help you with your growing company. Or maybe, you need to replace an HR professional that has left.

How to Interview Someone in the HR Industry

Ideally you want the person that is going to come in, read your mind, make your life easier and can be trusted. Anyone that you interview should be minimally qualified, so let’s assume you’ve jumped that hurdle. Now unless you’re clairvoyant, you’re going to need some help asking the right questions to determine who has the passion, the desire, and the guts to be the best candidate.

Here are a few of my favorite interview questions and why.

1. What do you like about human resources? Why do you want to be an human resource professional?

We’re looking for passion, people! We want someone who loves the profession and is not just doing it for a pay check. We don’t want anyone mailing it in and getting complacent. We want HR innovators that want to use the latest trends to help achieve our goals.

2. Tell me about a time you made a mistake and what was the resolution and outcome?

I love this question because it’s really about accountability. You need someone that is not afraid to be honest about past mistakes and the corrective actions that they took to ensure it does happen again, the lesson learned. We know that everyone makes mistakes at work. No one’s perfect; so if the candidate says, “ I don’t make mistakes, or I can’t think of any, or I have so much experience that I don’t make mistakes” –  that’s a FAIL. What I’m hearing is, “I am too stubborn and self-conscious to admit that I’ve made mistakes.” So there’s your mistake, pretending as if you don’t make them! If they do give a specific example, listen very closely to how the interviewee overcame the example mistake; this will tell you a lot about their resilience and problem solving ability.

3. What are some of your weaknesses? What are your strengths?

Again, I’m looking for introspection and self-evaluation. This is a very standard interview questions across all positions. I don’t want to hear that you have no weaknesses because that’s a lie. How an interviewee talks about their own weaknesses will give you an idea about how he or she will talk about company weaknesses. The same idea applies when you listen to his or her strengths. You want someone that can inspire pride but be wary of a long unrealistic list of feats that makes one wonder why this person is even in the job market. He or she may be giving you the run around. Look for someone level-headed.

4. What do you look for in an organization and team dynamic?

Personally I like this question because the answer helps me to know what kind of employee you’re going to be. No one wants to be micromanaged but there must be a level of accountability. You must be able to work alone or under the pressure of a deadline without flaking out. You want someone that can be trusted to complete tasks and make decisions without too much coddling.

See also:

• 10 Most Common Illegal Interview Questions
• Identifying the 10 Soft Skills of a Great Intern
• Most Important Job Interview Question – “When Have You Failed?”

So now I got to tell you my least favorite HR interview questions. And these have actually been asked of me or I’ve heard someone ask them. Don’t be a victim to this kind of interview bias.

1. What person living or dead would you most like to have dinner with?

How about yo momma (don’t say that candidates)!  Nevertheless, this question bothers me because it leads the candidate to a place where they could be discriminated against. You want to stay away from entertainment icons, religious leaders and athletes. For instance you may think of Jesus Christ or Elvis Presley or Michael Jordan, but it just so could happen that the interviewer doesn’t like any of those leaders. Now you don’t “fit.” Candidates, if you get this question, I recommend going with a family member.

2. Tell me something that you probably shouldn’t tell me. 

Uh nothing! Just don’t see the point to this question. Again it leads the interviewee to talk about something inappropriate like, “There are some primo chicks in here.” Candidates, consider steering the conversation back to something work related, such as, “I’m huge fan of Macs. What type of computers / operating systems does the office use?”

When interviewing a person for an HR position you want to make sure you are looking someone who has a passion for HR because that minimizes the risk of them getting frustrated and quitting. You want someone who is knowledgeable and resourceful. You want someone who relies on skills just as much as experience, because things change quickly and you need someone who can adopt and is open-minded. Sometimes people with a lot of experience become entitled know-it-alls unwilling to learn new concepts or strategies (think social media, HR). Hiring decisions are costly, especially for a small growing business you want to be certain that you make the best choice available.

Hope this helps, what questions would you ask – or not ask – when hiring someone for your HR department?

For more information on how to interview.

Chris Fields is an HR professional and leadership guy who blogs and dispenses great (not just good) advice at Cost of Work. Connect with Chris via email at chris@costofwork.com.

The most important job interview question is, “When have you failed? Tell me about it.” The answer shows how one portrays their self to others, and what it’ll be like to work together. A job seeker can answer this question in one of three ways:

(1) beat around the bush, working the conversation to another topic,

(2) tell you story of how one almost failed but overcame it,

or (3) tell you a story of how one – for a reason or another – has failed before.

The world of work will not go as predictions of production indicate. It took me about 10-15 interviews with job seekers to learn that this is the most important question to ask a job candidate. Let’s examine the possibilities of how you can navigate this awkward question.

Failure 1

If the candidates beats around the bush and is unable tell you of a professional failure, you have learned that the candidate is one of the following:

(1) uncomfortable with the transparency of admitting failure (which may lead to an unwillingness to own up to mistakes committed in your company)

(2) in disbelief of failure’s existence,

(3) incapable of demonstrating the ability to explain the learnings from his or her failures in a traditional manner (Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.);

or maybe, (4) one has never truly failed before.

This answer does not necessarily mean you should not hire this person. You have learned of their mindset, and there is a job for every mindset. Maybe they are too shy to admit a mistake in a job interview? Or did the candidate seamlessly redirect the conversation to another relevant topic? If so, the candidate has demonstrated tremendous skill and character flaw in the same maneuver. No one is perfect. Many jobs favor the ability to communicate without admitting mistakes.

Failure 2

If the candidate tells you a story of how one almost failed but overcame it, you have learned that the candidate is one of the following:

(1) portrayer of the world in a permanently positive view (possibly doesn’t believe in failure),

(2) still not fully comfortable with the transparency of admitting failure but willing to meet you halfway (possibly doesn’t believe in failure; results! Why, man I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.),

(3) able to explain how one solved whatever difficulty of problem the example described;

or maybe, (4) one has never truly failed before (possibly does not believe in failure; if we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment).

Don’t underestimate the impact positivity can have on persistence and collaboration. Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. Ask yourself, why did the job seeker choose to tell me this specific failure? Pay close attention to how one solved the problem, turning the failure into a success, so to speak. Hire this person if their example is the type of problem solving the position demands.

See also:

• 10 Most Common Illegal Interview Questions
• Identifying the 10 Soft Skills of a Great Intern
• How to Interview Someone in the HR Industry

Failure 3

If the candidate tells you a story of how one – for a reason or another –  has failed before, you have learned that the candidate can:

(1) talk about a time when one has failed, and call it failure,

(2) talk about a time when one has failed, call it failure, and explain what one learned to become a better worker (failure is success if we learn from it.)

(3) talk about a time when one has failed and blame someone else for the failure;

or maybe, (4) the candidate has never failed before and is lying (the only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.)

This may be the most candid answer of a well rounded human being, but it is not necessarily the right hire for every position. Will this candidate detail the wrong failure to an important client, partner or reporter? That question can only be answered by their body of work and the rest of the interview. To tell a true story of failing in a job interview is to understand that failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. I like working with these people, on most projects. However, many issues involve multiple people, and I see a red flag if the job seeker blames the majority of the failure on another person.  

________________________________________________________________________________

Everyday, learning from failures changes how I share input in the hiring process. As always, I learned from that to write this. I like to work hands on with people who answer with a story of almost failing but overcoming it, or a story of how one – for a reason or another – has truly failed before, but that’s just me, and I also understand the value in hiring a person who beats around the bush, working his or her way to a topic that isn’t “failure.”

I failed yesterday. And the day before that. And who knows maybe it’s a failure to say the most important job interview question is …

Tell me about a time you failed

David Smooke fails everyday.

Entry level jobs can be especially tricky to recruit for. Unlike recruiting for roles that have a more seasoned candidate base, hiring managers often have to read between the lines and determine if a candidate will be successful based on limited work experience and how the candidate presents themselves in the interview process. Because of this, knowing what to ask the candidate during the interview is integral to a successful hire. When you are ready to interview your next entry-level hire, make sure you keep these 5 questions in mind. (* Updated 15/11/2017)

1. What made you decide to apply for this job?

This one seems obvious but it’s important to ask. You’d be surprised how many candidates can’t really answer this question, or answer it in a way that underwhelms such as “I need a job and this was hiring.” Candor is a plus, and in situations like this is a huge benefit. It gets bad candidates in and out the door faster.

2. What part of your previous experience do you think translates to being successful here?

This can seem like a trick question, especially if the candidate doesn’t have much traditional work experience. What you’re really looking to find out is how quickly a candidate can come up with a cohesive, impactful response. Many entry-level candidates will have little to no experience to call on, so this gives you a peek into how quickly they can solve a problem when there is an obvious barrier in their way.

3. What do you see your day to day being in this role?

This is a must to ask. By asking the candidate to tell you what they see as their day to day responsibilities, you will get a great idea of how well they will fit to the role. If they think they will be running the marketing department as an entry level analyst and refuse to accept why they wouldn’t be given the chance, you can assume they are a bit out of touch and may be a problem to manage later on. If you let them know politely though that they are a bit off and they take it in stride and with an unflagging enthusiasm for the opportunity, there is a good chance you’ve found a winner.

4. How would you approach a superior with a suggestion, problem, or criticism?

This question gives you a peek into how the candidate could handle team dynamics and the problems that may arise, as well as how they deal with addressing issues that may need supervision from management. No one wants a subordinate that’s constantly making a mountain out of a molehill or going over their head on petty issues, but it can be just as damaging if the employee is too timid to bring problems to light until it’s too late. Use this to get an idea of their conflict resolution skills and how much confidence they have in dealing with uncomfortable situations.

5. What do you hope to learn from this job?

This is a round of finding out their strengths and weaknesses.

Sure, you can ask them that directly, but do you think any candidate will actually tell you they are horrible at reports or have never run a campaign for a client? Entry-level candidates will probably have a lot they want to learn, so pay close attention to what they say as compared to their resume or previous experiences and why. Couple this with how much training you can provide for the role and you’ll be able to tell how well the prospect matches up. If they are looking to learn an entirely new skill set and you don’t have the time train, the position may not be the best fit and you’d want to look for someone looking to grow their current skillset more fully through daily application. Conversely, if you have a strong training program and the person is extra motivated to start on something new and could make a big impact, it only makes sense that you hire and train them, not give the position to someone that would be uninterested in receiving training for new skills.

The questions you ask in the interview process will vary greatly depending on a variety of factors. With entry-level candidates though you can usually ask two to three of the above questions to get a good feel for how they would perform in your company and the role. You know your company and the position best, so feel free to adapt these questions as you see fit. Best of luck making your next great entry level hire.

Sean Little is the VP of Marketing for FirstJob.com. FirstJob matches current students and recent college graduates with internships and quality career opportunities. Sean also runs FirstJob’s campus ambassador program at campuses across the country, helping students learn marketing topics while connecting them with top brands and job opportunities.

This is a guest post from our friends at Kayako

Are you using phone screening as part of your interviewing process? If not, you should be! Hypothetically, you’ve made it to the other side and are now working for a company you love. But rather than trying to get a job, you’re trying to find the right employees for your company. Crawling through job applications and resumes can be tough, but there is a way to do it that is less painful, and even fun!

What you shouldn’t be doing

If you’re like a lot of internal recruiters, you’re spending way too much time inside the hiring process – this isn’t as effective as it could be.

You might be:

• Spending too much time on lengthy face-to-face interviews.
• Interviewing candidates who are totally unsuitable for the role.
• Missing out on suitable candidates because you don’t have time to interview everyone.

While you’re spending time managing your process, you’re wasting valuable time that could be spent on other recruiting activities!

I want to show you how the first stage of the hiring process can be conducted over the phone.

It may sound cynical, but screening through phone calls is an effective way to streamline your recruitment process, benefiting both your company and prospective candidates. It saves your time, and theirs – especially if used well.

You don’t want to be messing around meeting all your prospective candidates in Starbucks, only to find that the majority are completely unsuitable for the post. Video conference calls also help to reduce running costs.

How to conduct effective phone screening

We’ve got some best practice methods for you to follow to ensure you get the most out of the phone screening process, and can sail off into the sunset with your new employee (hopefully).

At Kayako, we use all of these methods to smooth out our hiring process, because we know that our customer service team is our company’s greatest asset.

Here are some of our best practices that could be useful to you and your recruiting team:

1. Explain the process

As with anything in life, make sure everyone knows what to expect. As soon as you start bringing a prospective candidate into the pipeline, tell them how the process of the interview is going to go.

Let them know when they can expect a phone call, when they will know if they have been successful, what the next steps are and when they would receive an offer. This stops candidates from becoming confused and frustrated, and being driven to a different offer. This will also give a great impression of the efficiency of your company and the power of your brand. Every interaction you have with a non-employee is a brand experience, so make it a great one by providing an efficient and delightful candidate experience.

2. Make notes of their answers

When you’re actually conducting the phone interview, make sure you’re taking detailed notes. Always follow a predefined structure so your notes on all candidates are consistent, and easily interpreted by people conducting follow-up interviews. Even your future self will struggle to decode a mess that your past self has written.

If your Applicant Tracking System has a mobile app or desktop app, you can even keep notes within the software to review later. The more data you put in, the better data you’ll be able to get out.

Detail is key here. When you finish each call, you may want to set some time aside to finish up your notes. It will benefit you to review what you’ve written while you can still remember the interview to make sure it makes sense to your hiring team.

3. Focus only on essentials

While you’ll want to capture the details, you’ll also want to keep the phone call as brief as possible – no more than 20-30 minutes. If you subconsciously know you have limited time, you’ll be less tempted to waffle and stray off-topic, or let the candidate do so.

At this stage, don’t bother asking about their specific experience of technologies or technical details at this stage. Leave that to the next phase interview, as your job here is to uncover the most important information about the candidate – which is whether they will be a good fit for your company.

Always keep the same questions for the position you’re hiring for, because thinking of fresh ones every time can be exhausting. Then you can focus on whether you’re getting enough information to invite them in for an interview, not what to ask them next.

For example, what this looks like at Kayako, as customer support is a job that needs attitude before skills, our customer service interview questions will find that passion using these:

• Why are you leaving your current role / what interested you in this role?
• What are your career goals?
• What are you really good at professionally?
• What are you not good at or not interested in doing professionally?
• Who were your last five bosses, and how would they each rate your performance on a 1-10 scale when we talk to them?
• What are your salary expectations?
• Any questions for me?

Remember to: dig deep into their answers with “who, how, what.” And take notes, at this stage it is super important for collecting what you may want to follow up on in the in person interview.

4. Selling the company and job

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the only factor is deciding which candidate you want to hire. Many hiring managers have been thwarted when they think they’ve locked the perfect candidate, only to be told that the candidate accepted a job elsewhere!

Use the phone interview as an opportunity to “sell” your organization to the candidate. Expand upon what they have absorbed from the job description, your company website, and social media profiles. Make the best first impression you can to attract top candidates.

Briefly explain the job requirements and be sure to include key information about why you think the job role is worthwhile and challenging. Great candidates will respond favorably to opportunities to grow professionally.

What to do next

Once you’ve conducted all your phone interviews, take a closer look at who’s left, and decide who you feel is a good candidate for an in-person interview.

You must focus on your the ultimate goal of finding the best person for the entire time you are conducting this screening process.

The goal is to select only candidates who are likely to be the right fit for the company based on their personality, career history and attitude. If any one of these qualities is missing, then you’re sadly wasting your time.

So, ditch the old habit of meeting every prospective candidate in person, and start scheduling in phone screening interviews with everyone who you think could be a good fit (limit the interviews to a certain number of people if lots of candidates catch your eye). With SmartRecruiters’s built-in interview scheduling, it’s easier than ever to get these coordinated.

Clearly explain to each candidate the process you are expecting them to follow, with dates and next steps included.

Make detailed notes during each interview, while at the same time restricting yourself to a maximum of thirty minutes. With practice, you’ll get a lot better at setting the pace, and, if you think you might run over, just politely tell them you have another appointment in your schedule.

Don’t forget that you are the ambassador for your company, and it’s your job to let the candidate know exactly why it’s a great place to work. Don’t be afraid to let your natural enthusiasm shine through in the interviews, and you’re all set for success with phone screening.

Finding qualified candidates may seem like the hardest part of the hiring funnel, but what about the grueling and lengthy interview process? It’s no surprise that most candidates find the process broken or inefficient, and this rings especially true for developers.

Stack Overflow’s Annual Developer Survey provided us with specific information regarding developer’s feelings on interviews, allowing us to convey to recruiters and hiring managers alike what changes they can make to effectively interview technical candidates. Here are just a few mistakes to avoid when interviewing developer candidates for your company.

1. Ignoring the Pre-Interview Stage

35% of developers we surveyed said they wanted to be better prepared for the interview ahead of time, including being informed of who they will be speaking with. In the grand scheme of things, this is an easy fix for most recruiters and hiring managers. Sending out a quick email with the basic details (who they will be speaking with, how long the interviews are expected to last, etc.) ensures that the candidate is well-prepared and content, and only takes a few minutes on your end. Modern applicant tracking systems like SmartRecruiters even allow you to send the interview agenda and details to the candidate automatically, right after scheduling the interview, making this step easy and effortless. This pre-interview preparation also allows the candidate to ask questions before the interview, saving you both time and confusion in the long run.

2. Not Introducing Them to Anyone

47% of developers we surveyed said they wanted to be introduced to the team during the interview process. Programmers will pay very close attention to the people they meet, focusing on things like “Are they nice?” and “Are they smart?” While they don’t expect to meet everyone during their first interview, developers would ideally like to meet a few of their potential engineering team members and maybe even their future boss. Introducing them to members of the team is an easy way for candidates to get a feel of what the company culture is like as well as see if they can see themselves working closely with these people.

3. Taking Too Long to Follow Up After an Interview

We can all agree that no one likes being left hanging after a job interview. But with developers, this rings especially true. If the candidate didn’t get the job, communicating early on eliminates stress and uncertainty and allows the candidate to continue their job search. On the flip side, if you are interested in moving forward with a candidate you need to do it quickly – developers are in high demand and likely to have offers from multiple companies on their plate. Developers who are proactively searching for their next job don’t stay available for very long, and those who aren’t looking are constantly being recruited.

Ready to find technical candidates to interview?

Stack Overflow is the trusted destination site for software developers to find, ask, and answer programming questions. Stack Overflow helps employers reach, attract, and engage talent while helping developers find jobs they love.

With its seamless integration with SmartRecruiters, in a few minutes you can create your job ad and put it in front of millions of developers with targeted job listings.

Access Stack Overflow’s page on the Marketplace and make them a part of your hiring success today!

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This article was written by Rachel Maleady, Content Marketing Writer at Stack Overflow, where she covers topics ranging from recruiting to employer branding in the tech industry.

The use of video interviewing within the recruiting ecosystem has seen dramatic changes of late. The prevalence of YouTube, Facebook and Skype has made video central to  people’s lives. Now, globalization and mobile technology have boosted the need for Talent Acquisition teams to use video interviews as a screening tool instead of old fashioned phone interviews.

According to a recent Video Interviewing Usage Study by Sarah White & Associates, more than half of companies phone-screen 4 to 9 candidates for each open position, while 35% of organizations take more than 30 minutes per candidate just to schedule a phone-screen. That means you can lose up to 4.5 hours of your day just to schedule phone interviews for one position. With an asynchronous video interview integrated to your Talent Acquisition Platform, you can schedule and screen your long list of candidates in mere minutes rather than hours. From an ROI perspective, it makes sense doesn’t it?

Well, the benefits don’t stop there! Integrating video interviews to your hiring process provides numerous benefits for recruiters, hiring managers and candidates:

1. Better quality talent pipeline: Video interviews allow a powerful and faster screening process, bringing  higher caliber candidates for later round face-to-face interviews.
2. Better candidate experience: It gives candidates the convenience to use mobile apps to record interviews, when they want.
3. Higher collaboration between hiring managers and recruiters: Teams can evaluate candidates together on their mobile devices or phones
4. Better hiring success metrics: Video interviewing reduces the cost and time-to-hire for every candidate.
5. Higher recruiter productivity: See video interviews seamlessly integrated to your Talent Acquisition Platform as a step in the hiring process, and eliminate scheduling and coordination hassles.

Interested to know how you can integrate video interviews to your hiring process? Check out Sonru in the SmartRecruiters Marketplace, and allow your candidates to complete their interview at a time and location that is convenient for them, while you can get the right applicants in front of hiring managers sooner than it would be possible with traditional methods alone.

Sonru and SmartRecruiters work harmoniously together, bringing the best features of asynchronous video interviewing to a seamlessly integrated platform. This SmartRecruiters Marketplace integration allows video interviews to be deployed in seconds, with just a click of a button! And you can browse a selection of 6 pre-defined strengths-based interview types tailored to evaluate candidates specifically for different job positions.

Video interviewing technology has come of age, giving TA teams a competitive advantage in the race to find top talent. Can you afford to come last?

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This article was written by Gillian Doyle. She has been with Sonru for over a year now and has been involved in many aspects of the organization. Beginning her Sonru journey as Business Developer for the Nordic Region she transitioned into her current role as Global Alliances Relationship Manager and has become a video-interviewing expert in the recruitment field. She strives to keep herself and her alliance partners well informed on all the latest Sonru buzz and she is passionate about educating the world about video interviewing!

Reach out to Gillian Doyle on LinkedIn: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/gilliandoylesonru

Link to Sonru Marketplace listing and Sonru website: www.sonru.com

There are lots of bad job interview questions out there. (If you want to see how you would fare against some good interview questions, take the free quiz “Could You Pass This Job Interview?”).

My numerous studies and interviews with hiring managers have revealed that the following three job interview questions are the ones used by the majority of interviewers. They’re all bad. And frighteningly, these are the questions a lot of interviewers rely upon when making their final hiring decisions.

The bad job interview questions are:

• Tell me about yourself.
• What are your strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?

The factors that make these such bad job interview questions extend well beyond the fact that a lot of people use them.

1. First, these questions are too vague; they allow only for really vacuous answers.
2. Second, because these questions are so well-known, and because it’s remarkably easy to conceive of and verbalize any number of vacuous answers to them, virtually every candidate has a ‘canned’ answer ready to give for every one of them.
3. Third, because all those canned vacuous answers sound the same, it’s nearly impossible to differentiate future high and low performers based on any answers you might get to these questions.

And that’s why you should test yourself on the free quiz “Could You Pass This Job Interview?”

I should note that some people try to justify their use of these questions by arguing that the vagueness of the questions and the vacuous nature of the answers they inspire make them a nice, gentle ‘rapport- building’ exercise to be used at the beginning of the interview. But rapport-building is all about getting the person relaxed and making them feel comfortable enough to really open-up to you; not making them recite a vapid answer to a question that is ostensibly trying to judge them.

You definitely want to learn things about the people you interview; especially regarding their strengths and weaknesses. But the only thing these three job interview questions are going to reveal is how well the candidate can recite scripted answers. And the purpose of an interview isn’t to test recitation skills, but rather to accurately reveal how a person will perform when they’re working for you.

To further prove my point that these three job interview questions are worthless, think about the answers you usually get when you ask an applicant a question like: “So tell me about yourself.. ” The typical response goes something like this:

“Well, I’m a motivated self-starter; always have been. Ever since I was a kid I’ve really loved hard work. Those were the values I grew up with; working hard, but not in a way that burns out the people around me; persevering, but still knowing when enough-is-enough, and collaborating but also helping other people get better. I’ve also been told that I have a lot of humility and a real appreciation for the feelings of others. I guess some people would call that emotional intelligence. In conclusion, I’m really dedicated to bringing value to others, especially my boss. I’ve never desired a work-life balance for myself (due to some ‘gifted child’ experiments when I was a kid, I don’t need sleep). But I am 100% dedicated to being so good in my job so my boss can achieve an amazing work-life balance. “

Of course, it would be great if all this were true. But let’s be honest here. What can you really learn from a response like that? The only thing I learned is that this is a good script writer who has a talent for reciting lines. And if those happen to be truly mission-critical characteristics for the job, then perhaps you should consider this candidate. But beyond that, there’s not much else to be learned from this response, or any responses like it.

Now imagine that after you shake off your amazement at your candidate’s brilliant example of critical self-reflection (please note the sarcasm), you decide to ask a follow-up question. Maybe something like, “Wow, that all sounds really great. I don’t suppose you have any weaknesses, do you?”

Given the direction of the candidate’s initial response, it shouldn’t be difficult to predict the kind of answer this follow up will elicit. Probably something like:

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t ask me that because I never lie, and I actually do have two weaknesses. First, I have been told by my previous bosses that I work too hard. I get way too involved with my work and I end up giving too much of myself to the job. This also feeds my perfectionist streak; I really like to make sure that my boss never ever sees a mistake come from me. And this leads to my second weakness which is that sometimes I care too much about my teammates. And again I’m guilty of giving way too much of myself in my efforts to help them achieve greatness.”

Now, if reports started rolling in that interviewers were asking “What are your weaknesses? ” and hearing in response things like: “ I have a violent temper and I stalked my last boss, ” or, “ I hate people, and I can’t stand taking orders, ” then perhaps this line of questioning would have value. But honest responses such as these are rarely heard in an interview setting. The odds are infinitesimally small that anyone will answer any of these three questions with complete honesty.

One of the most fundamental tests of the effectiveness of a job interview question is the extent to which it helps differentiate between high and low performers. Any interview question that doesn’t distinguish between these two groups is the equivalent of giving a college exam on which every student automatically scores an “ A.” And what’s the point of giving a test where everyone gets the same grade?

The lessons here are to never take at face value any response that comes off sounding all puffed-up and hollow, like bad advertising copy. And definitely be concerned when the questions you’re asking produce mostly hollow answers.

Mark Murphy is NY Times bestseller, author of Hiring for Attitude, Founder of Leadership IQ, a sought-after speaker, and creator of the quiz Could You Pass This Job Interview?

This article was written by Mark Murphy from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. SmartRecruiters is the hiring success platform to find and hire great people.

Today I’d like to go back to the basics. I think it’s important to review our foundations every now and then. Just to make sure that we’re beginning at the right starting point. So, before you read any further, take a minute to jot down (even if it’s just in your head) the three interview questions which are crucial to any interview you take. Not the questions like “What’s your name?” but instead think about the ones that you ask to learn about a candidate.

Got them?

Okay, here are mine. If any of them differ from yours, tell me in the comments below whether you would adopt mine or if you think I should use yours instead.

1. Tell me about yourself.

Oh, there’s so much I’m looking for in this question. First up is the person’s confidence. There are a great number of people who reply with “What would you like to know?” and that really isn’t the answer I’m looking for. I don’t want to hear much about anyone’s personal life – a little bit is always welcome of course. But specifically I want to hear about how well they think they’ll fit into my company and into the job I have for them. Like I said, it shows me their confidence – but it also shows me whether they’ve done research into my company. I want to know if they’ve come prepared for the interview.

2. Tell me about a time you failed at a goal you needed to achieve.

I’ve previously talked about why I ask this question instead of “What’s your greatest strength’s and weakness?“ By asking this, I want an understanding of how this person analyzes their own failures. It’s not about what they failed at all or even why they failed. It’s most about what they learned from this failure and if they’re really good, how they implemented (or plan on implementing) this lesson in the future. If they can tell me that last part without being prompted…they’ve got a good chance of being hired.

3. Tell me about a time you succeeded at a difficult task.

I ask this instead of asking “Why Should We Hire You?” The insight this question provides is how the candidate handles challenges and pressure. I want to see what they consider to be a difficult task and the specific components of this task. It lets me gauge whether the candidate has challenges handling people, tough deadlines, limited resources or big projects. It gives me an insight into this person’s weaknesses and how they go about solving hurdles they feel are challenging.

You know, after writing this post, I myself realized that interviewing is really about being able to read between the lines. In the short time that people have with a candidate all interviewers are trying to extract as much information as possible. Almost any question asked (if not all) are a double edged sword. There’s the question the interviewer is asking and then there’s the information they’re actually looking for.

This article was written by Paul Keijzer from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. SmartRecruiters is the hiring success platform to find and hire great people.

With all the wonderful words in the English language — the only language, according to the author Bill Bryson, that has or needs a thesaurus — why would job interviewers so often revert to the tired, lame and uncreative standard interview question “Where do you see yourself in five years?” 

They can’t even rouse themselves out of their stupor long enough to change up the words and ask job-seekers “What’s your long-range plan?” or “What are some things you’d like to accomplish in your life, inside or outside of work?”

They stick to the exact same words in the same order that uncreative interviewers have been asking job applicants since before I was born.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” is a ridiculous interview question. For starters, it’s intrusive. The employer isn’t remotely suggesting that they’re about to make a five-year job offer to the job-seeker, much less commit to a five-year contract. Yo, bro, if you’re not ready to sign up to use my services for the next five years, what business is it of yours what I plan to be doing in 2020?

Beyond that, this question (which may indeed have made sense during the Mad Men era when I was learning to walk, since employment back then was definitely a longer-term relationship than it is now) is irrelevant to the point of idiocy now.

Anyone who is working off a five year plan in these tumultuous times is not someone who can read the weather patterns and respond accordingly.

The best kind of planning these days is to know what you’re passionate about, have some rough ideas about how to get closer to your passion over time and then react, react and keep reacting to shifts in the wind!

The old five-year-plan paradigm comes from a day when life was either more stable and predictable than it is now or we were all deluding ourselves that it was. I can understand why a corporation hiring a baby new-grad trainee and offering him or her a ride on the conveyor belt to the executive suite might ask “What’s your five-year plan?”

A kid who says “I want to work hard, get promoted and become a supervisor in five or six years” might be a great kid, but no one could say that they’re super-ambitious or fired up with career advancement fever.

The question “What do you think you’ll be doing in five years?” may have made sense in an era when walking into a company as a new employer was a strong predictor that you’d still be on the payroll five years into the future.

That is not a safe assumption today. The end of employment is already on top of us, whether we’ve noticed it or not. We are all entrepreneurs now. Sometimes we have just one client, and then we call our state “employed.” In some ways that state is riskier than the other state, the one where we have several clients at one time.

I have to assume that the hiring managers and HR folks who still use the goofy interview question “Where do you see yourself in five years?”  have one of two possible issues:

• They may be asking the five-year question because they don’t know how to get through a job interview without the help of a script, or
• They may be fearful enough about the slings and arrows of fate that they automatically judge a person with a five-year plan Good and a person without one, Bad.

If you think about it, the question “Where do you see yourself in five years?” has fear threaded through it. People who face the world cheerfully and courageously take what the world brings them. They may know exactly where they are headed or they may ride the waves to see what life can show them that they hadn’t thought of on their own.

In my experience, the more fearful a person is the more he or she needs bulwarks against that fear, and five-year plans make excellent bulwarks. We try to claim a little power over what can feel like an overwhelming force – the everyday challenge of navigating grown-up life on earth, to be specific — by writing up plans and making five-year forecasts into our own futures.

Five years is a long time. Did any of us plan or expect to be here, doing what we’re doing right now, back in 2009?

There are hundreds or thousands of smarter, more human and more useful interview questions than “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Here are five of them to get you started — keeping in mind that as you grow your Interviewing with a Human Voice muscles, soon you’ll find that you don’t need to ask questions of your job candidates at all!

1. What questions do you have for me about the job? (Your candidates’ questions for you will tell you tons more about them than their answers to your scripted questions ever could!)
2. As you read the job ad, you probably thought about situations in your own life and career that sounded like parallels to this job. Can you please tell me about something you’ve done already that might  be similar to what you’d be doing in this job?
3. What do you know so far about our company? (You are learning about the research that your candidate conducted prior to the interview, and beyond that, about his or her ability to assimilate that research to get a better understanding of what your firm does and a sense of what the job might entail.)
4. From what you know so far, what aspect of the job do you think would  be most interesting for you and most closely aligned with your talents?
5. Based on your research and our conversation today, how would you approach the job — what would you plan to focus on in your first 30, 60 and 90 days?

It is a new day. We don’t have to ask brainless interview questions that don’t mean anything and don’t help us evaluate the fit between a person and a job. We can be smarter and more human than that. The Human Workplace is already here, and not a moment too soon!

This article was written by Liz Ryan from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. SmartRecruiters is the hiring success platform to find and hire great people.

We’ve all used behavioral interview questions—questions that ask job candidates to recount a past experience so we can assess their likely future performance. In theory, behavioral interview questions should work just fine (because past behavior is usually a decent predictor of future behavior).

But most interviewers ask behavioral questions in a way that gives away the correct answer and thus ruins the question’s effectiveness.

Here are some pretty typical behavioral interview questions:

• Tell me about a time when you adapted to a difficult situation and how you did it.
• Tell me about a time when you had to successfully balance competing priorities.
• Tell me about a time when you were bored on the job and what you did to make the job more interesting.
• Tell me about a time when you successfully persuaded someone to see things your way.
• You probably noticed that all of these questions ask the candidate to recount a time when they ‘successfully’ did something. The candidate is asked about times they adapted to a difficult situation, balanced competing priorities, made their job more interesting and successfully persuaded someone. And that leads us to the flaw in these questions.

The flaw in behavioral interview questions
These behavioral interview questions make very clear that the candidate is supposed to share a success story about adapting, balancing, persuading, etc. No candidate in their right mind would answer these questions by saying “I’m terrible at persuading people, and my boss is a jerk who never listens to me anyway.” Or “I’m constantly overwhelmed by competing priorities, and I can’t live like that.”

These questions give away the right answers; cuing candidates to share success stories and avoid examples of failure. But how are interviewers supposed to tell good from bad candidates if everyone shares only success stories? Wouldn’t you rather change the question so that candidates feel free to tell you about all the times they couldn’t balance competing priorities? Or failed to persuade people? Or couldn’t adapt to a difficult situation?

Let’s take the question “Tell me about a time when you were bored on the job and what you did to make the job more interesting.” Because the question gives away the correct answer (talk about going from bored to interested), anyone who answers is going to say something like “here’s what I did to make the job the more interesting, and I grew professionally, and I was so enriched, etc.”

But now, imagine that you tweaked the question to not divulge the answer and you asked “Could you tell me about a time when you were bored on the job?” Because you’re not giving away the correct answer, you’re going to hear a wide range of responses.

Some candidates (people who are ‘problem bringers’ in their current job) are going to say things like “OMG, that job was sooo boring” and “I couldn’t wait to quit” and “I was bored, but hey, I needed the money.” Answers like that are a great gift because they immediately tell you not to hire that candidate. And those answers make your job as interviewer much easier because they help you weed-out the weaker candidates.

By contrast, people who are ‘problem solvers’ in their current jobs will have success stories that they’ll happily share. Their answers will highlight successes with details, context, evidence of deep thinking, and much more. And because you will have culled out the poor candidates, these potential star candidates will be that much easier to identify.

When I wrote Hiring for Attitude, my research found that up to 50-60% of candidates will give you answers about failures rather than successes when the interview question doesn’t directly divulge the correct answer. In essence, half of candidates could be ‘problem bringers’ rather than ‘problem solvers.’ While that’s probably bad for society, it makes your job as an interviewer much easier when half of all candidates self-identify as having a subpar attitude.

How to fix behavioral interview questions
The good news is that the problematic interview questions we’ve been discussing are fixable (as are most behavioral interview questions). The first big fix is to replace loaded words (like adapt, successfully, balance, persuade) with less presumptuous language. For instance, instead of asking candidates about when they ‘balanced’ competing priorities, we should ask them about when they ‘faced’ competing priorities. Instead of asking about when they ‘adapted’ to a difficult situation, we should ask about when they ‘faced’ a difficult situation.

The second big fix is to eliminate leading phrases like “tell me how you did it.” We want to ask questions that are so open-ended that candidates feel comfortable telling us when they did not take any action. Again, we want to let them self-identify as ‘problem bringers’ rather than ‘problem solvers.’

Here are some examples of how we could fix those interview questions…

ORIGINAL: Tell me about a time when you adapted to a difficult situation and how you did it.
CORRECTED: Could you tell me about a time when you faced a difficult situation?

ORIGINAL: Tell me about a time when you had to successfully balance competing priorities.
CORRECTED: Could you tell me about a time when you faced competing priorities?

ORIGINAL: Tell me about a time when you were bored on the job and what you did to make the job more interesting.
CORRECTED: Could you tell me about a time when you were bored on the job?

ORIGINAL: Tell me about a time when you successfully persuaded someone to see things your way.
CORRECTED: Could you tell me about a time when people didn’t see things your way?

Notice how each of the corrected questions doesn’t divulge the correct answer? The corrected questions allow candidates to share failures or successes, and in doing so, allow candidates to reveal their true attitudes.

You probably also noticed that my corrected questions are a bit more difficult for candidates to answer. And that’s intentional. Your job as interviewer is not to help candidates answer your questions. While leaders generally want to help people succeed, this is one occasion where you have to sit back and allow them to fail (i.e. give really bad answers). I know it seems harsh, but it’s much better to let them fail in an interview than to hire them and watch them fail on the job.

Mark Murphy is the founder of Leadership IQ, keynote speaker, leadership researcher, and developer of the online certification training “Hiring for Attitude.” Mark is the author of five books, including the New York Times bestseller “Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More.” And his prior book, “Hiring for Attitude,” was chosen as a top business book by CNBC.

This article was written by Mark Murphy from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. SmartRecruiters is the hiring success platform to find and hire great people.