Most people think giving an interview is one of the most difficult things to do because your career depends on the interviewer and you must know how to tackle interview in one go, but have you ever thought being interviewer is as tough as giving an interview.
It’s a common thinking that taking interview is something anyone can do but no, this is not the entire truth. You need to prepare well to take the interview and how fruitful it is going to be, depends on the success of the interview.
No interview is successful without question and answers but it is necessary to ask a good question so that you can understand the candidates and choose best out of them.
Same old questions don’t work in today’s tech savvy world where information is available on your fingertip, it is not very hard for the interviewee to prepare well and know how to answer a certain type of questions.
To know your best choices it is necessary to ask questions which can help you in getting right information but how to ask better interview questions?
To answer your question we are going to discuss how to ask better interview questions in this article. Read this article to know more.
Asking Good Interview Questions:
1. Open-ended question:
To make your interview fruitful and to gather more information about potential employee ask open-ended questions. Open ended question leave the space to follow up and ask more questions, when you ask these kinds of questions you can easily ask for further explanation.
Avoid asking a question which has answer yes or no because they leave no space for explanation and you don’t have a chance to observe their reaction. If its important for the interviewer to ask questions which need at least some explanation from interviewee when someone explains something it provides an opportunity to observe and observation is what you need to know some unsaid words from their body language.
2. Use casual approach:
Are you the kind of interviewer who uses the strict approach in an interview? If yes then change your tactics and use casual approach. When you use strict approach for the interview it becomes more like an interrogation and less like an interview and you don’t want your interview to be less fruitful because it will harm your image as well as do nothing good for the organization you are interviewing for.
Using strict approach make your interviewee more nervous than already he is and makes him speak less as well as uncomfortable in giving you an honest answer. That’s why we suggest using casual approach so that your interview can be fruitful and you get right employee you want for the job.
3. Don’t be afraid of dumb question:
Yes you are the interviewer and you suppose to be the intelligent one in an interview but your intelligence only helps you when you use it in the correct way and got something good out of it.
Asking dumb question doesn’t make you any less of intelligent or doesn’t affect your designation in the organization. Its just that when you ask some silly question or said to explain something silly in your discussion, you get to see the reaction of your interviewee, it helps you in checking how they deal with the different situation and their point of tolerance as well as it helps in making the conversation more casual than strict. Just don’t ask something stupid, use your common sense to ask something useful.
4. Keep your tone soft and light hearted:
Yes another point for the way you converse with the interviewee, you cannot behave like school principal in an interview. When you keep your tone rude and insulting, you just scare the hell out of your interviewee and it will do no good for you as well.
Keep your tone soft and light hearted while asking questions and make your interviewee comfortable so that he/she can actively take part in answering your question. Also when you make conversation light hearted, you have more chance of knowing your interviewee because they answer more freely in that type of environment.
5. Ask short questions:
Most interviews have a time limit and you have to ask as much as possible so that you can choose the right candidate for the job. This time, limit often makes interviewer ask the lengthy question because they think asking the lengthy question will save their time and they will have more information.
When you ask a lengthy question to your interview it confuses them, they often forget the whole sentence or avoid providing some information you ask in lengthy question, so avoid asking lengthy questions. Choose short questions, that way you will have time to ask for more information on certain answers and you can easily ask for an explanation if you feel any confusion.
6. Use word ‘how’ more often:
When an interviewer prepares for the interview the biggest problem he faces is what to ask so that it will be easier to select the best candidate out of many, to get to know your interviewee use word ‘how’. This is the word that can help you in getting to know your interviewee like how you define hard work? How you plan your work? How you do certain task? How you manage office and home? This kind of question will give you an insight of your interviewee and you know the way they deal with work and how to manage it.
7. Ask working approach:
Another good thing to ask in an interview is work approach they use to do a certain task. It depends on a lot of how they do their work and what are their work ethics because what you need is, a good candidate who will work well in your organization. You are the interviewer and you are going to play an important role in selecting the right candidate for the work so, ask right question because your question is the way you get to know your interviewee.
8. Ask why you should hire them?
One of the most important questions to ask in an interview is why we hire you? This is the single question which gives the opportunity to the interviewee to talk about himself and why he/she is more suitable for the job than anyone else and you know by their answer if they are the right candidate for the position or not. Selecting a right candidate is very important for any organization to perform well and you are playing an important role in selecting one.
9. Ask what they enjoy most in their previous job?
When it comes to interviewing a candidate for the job it becomes very important for the interviewer to do the job in a best possible way, ask a question which can reveal more about the interviewee so that you can choose the right one.
To know how they work and how they will corporate with your team, ask the question what they enjoy most in their previous job that way you will have a more clear picture of how they work in a team and what they do good in the team.
10. Keep conversation going:
Another way to ask the better question is to keep the conversation going. When you start a conversation with someone you don’t think beforehand what you are going to talk or even if you have planned conversation to do, you still go to different topics which arise in between the conversation which keeps the conversation flowing. This simple rule applies for the interview as well, keeps the conversation going that way, you can ask something from the thing interviewee saying or can ask to elaborate something you don’t understand clearly or simply can ask something related to it.
They best way to figure out someone is to observe them and observe their way of continuing answering you, check their way of sharing info and how comfortable they are.
11. Push slightly but don’t cross limit:
When you push someone out of their comfort zone they react and it shows how they deal with a tricky situation which needs a different approach. When you interview push candidates out of their comfort zone, ask questions about their work, what they don’t like about work and what they love to do as well as ask about the previous boss and future plans. When you try to push interviewee out of their comfort zone do not overdo it because it may take the whole interview in the wrong direction.
Things you Should Avoid when Taking Interview:
1. Strict tone:
Facing interviewer is a situation where we all become nervous no matter whom we are and how much time we had to face the same situation and when the interviewer uses strict tone it makes the situation worse for the interviewee. So, don’t use strict tone on the interviewee as they are nervous enough already.
2. Personal questions:
It’s fine to ask a question related to professional life but when the interviewer asks a personal question from interviewer it becomes little risky. Everyone loves their privacy so avoid questions which are too personal or interviewee hesitating to answer.
3. Lengthy questions:
Yes, lengthy question or summarizing everything in few question by making them lengthy can cut short the information you are getting from interviewee so ask the short and direct question, that way you will have correct information, not something confusing and irrelevant.
4. Too many questions about past experiences:
What is in past should remain in the past, don’t dwell so much on interviewee’s past because their past is what they had done in the previous job and what matters to you is what they can do for this job. We are not saying don’t ask a question about the past but we are saying don’t just stay in the past, ask a question related to future and plans as well as working strategy.
5. Layback approach:
How can you hire someone right for the job when you yourself are not serious about working? The ways you are representing yourself leave an impression on interviewer as well. Most people concern about interviewee’s impression but the impression of interviewer matters as much. Use professional approach, keep things on the professional front and show an excellent example of professionalism.
Conclusion:
It is the common perception that only interviewee need to prepare because it is easy to take the interview, you just need to ask a question while sitting on a leather chair but there is nothing true about this perception. An interviewer needs to prepare as much as an interviewee.
Asking the right question is very important as it helps in selecting right candidate and leaves a good impression on a potential employee. Good interview holds importance for interviewee as well as the organization as it also represents how they work and how they treat their potential employee.
After discussing all above points we can say that interview is an important process for both employers as well as the employee. They do need each other to make it work and it is only successful if all rules and regulations followed with the traditional approach as well as something different because in the world of globalization and internet availability people have easy access to all sort of information.
Use these points to make your interview successful where you can choose someone worth working in your organization by asking the right question. It is important to have a healthy conversation with your potential worker because it helps you understand and selecting the right one. It also leaves a good impression on the candidates who got rejected due to some reason and going to learn from their experience. A successful organization keeps everyone satisfied with the way they work and deal with the things. It also includes the fair process of interview.
