One\r\nof the most important lessons I learnt in my recruitment career was that asking\r\nthe right questions and preparing for it effectively was key. The better I\r\nprepared for it in advance and the more effective questions I asked, the more\r\ninformation I was able to gain which then helped me to make the right hiring\r\ndecision. Is it an art to ask the right interview questions?
"},"body":{"body":"One of the most\r\nimportant lessons I learnt in my recruitment career was that asking the right\r\nquestions and preparing for it effectively was key. The better I prepared for\r\nit in advance and the more effective questions I asked, the more information I was\r\nable to gain which then helped me to make the right hiring decision. Is it an\r\nart to ask the right interview questions? I do think so because I learnt that\r\nasking lots of questions alone doesn’t mean that you are doing your job right.\r\nYou need to ask the right questions based on a candidate’s required job competencies.\r\nAnd not just that, you also need to know how to interpret the answers correctly\r\nand be able to read between the lines, something that should not be\r\nunderestimated.
No matter what\r\nposition I had to fill, my guideline was always to find answers to the\r\nfollowing four questions: Is the person able to do the job? Is the person\r\nmotivated to do the job? Is the person manageable? Does the person fit into the\r\norganisation? For each of these four questions I had to ask a series of further\r\nprobing questions. This always helped me to determine if the candidate was\r\nabsolutely the right choice. Research has actually shown that the rate of\r\nsuccessful hires using traditional methods is just 19 %, while with\r\nbehaviour-based interviewing, the percentage is 75.
Many HR\r\nProfessionals believe that past performance is the best indicator of future\r\nsuccess on the job. Questions are crafted so that candidates give real-life\r\nexamples using SAR statements (S: Situation in which the behaviour took place,\r\nA = the action the candidate took to address the situation, R = results of the\r\naction). The goal of the recruiter is to determine that the candidate cannot\r\njust do what they claim they can do, but also have actually done it and can\r\ndescribe specific situations they faced, the actions they took and the results\r\nof their actions.
I always made\r\nuse of this behaviour-based interviewing technique to some extent because these\r\nkind of questions revealed many more insights about a candidate’s skill set,\r\nknowledge or experience. Some examples are: “TELL ME ABOUT A TIME … when you\r\nhad many projects due all at the same time.” Or “GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF … when\r\nyou came up with a cost-cutting idea.” Or “DESCRIBE … an innovate idea that you\r\ndeveloped that led to the success of a company initiative.”
Let’s assume you\r\nask two candidates two different questions. Candidate 1: “Are you a good\r\nleader?” and candidate 2: “Tell me about a situation in which you had to lead\r\nmany people to achieve a goal. Afterwards, you also asked “How did they\r\nrespond?”, “How did you keep the momentum going?”, “What was the outcome?”\r\nWhich candidate do you think will tell you more about their experience as a\r\nleader? If you ask structured, open-ended, and probing questions, you will make\r\ncandidates reveal the necessary information that you need to confidently\r\npredict how they are going to perform on the job in the future. You might never\r\nhave a 100 % guarantee for it, however, the chances that a candidate might\r\nperform very well in the future again are high.
Another\r\nimportant point that a recruiter needs to keep in mind is not to ask any\r\nillegal questions which might vary from country to country. In the USA, for\r\nexample, asking “Do you have any disabilities?” is considered as illegal but if\r\nyou formulate the question differently by asking “Can you perform the functions\r\nof this job?” it would not get you into any trouble. It is important to be well\r\nprepared in order to reduce the risk of asking illegal questions without\r\nrealising it and expose the organisation to lawsuits.
Asking questions\r\ndoesn’t end at the interview stage. At a later stage also former employers need\r\nto be contacted and asking the right questions at the right time will again\r\nprove to be valuable in order to make the right hiring decision. Last but not\r\nleast, knowing what, how and when to ask the right questions can also be very\r\nbeneficial for making other important life decisions too. Thus, a skill that is\r\ndefinitely worthwhile learning and applying.
"},"authorName":"Karin Schroeck-Singh","authorBio":{"authorBio":"Karin Schroeck-Singh is a passionate Public Speaker, eBook Author, and a freelancing Online Content Producer. She has an MBA from the University of Leicester (UK) and gained 18 years of international work experience in Italy, the UK and India."},"publishedOn":"2015-05-31T19:09:59.147Z"}},"pageContext":{"id":"def75816-823d-577c-bdc3-69fc28b57fe9"}}, "staticQueryHashes": []}