Effective interviewing 2: questioning
March 10, 2008
Following on from last week’s post about effective interview structures, developing good questioning skills will also help to improve the accuracy of the assessment of the candidate’s ability to do the job. A good technique to use is the funnelling technique, which allows the interviewer to drill or ‘funnel’ down into a subject with the candidate:
- Start with an open question – one that invites an open response e.g. starting with what, where, how, why, when: “What experience have you had in Sales?” These open questions may be developed from the person spec prior to the interview so that all areas are covered.
- Drill down further into the subject by asking further probing questions. “what was the product you were selling?”, “how many calls did you make per day?” etc
- Use closed questions to confirm understanding or clarify a point. “So you made around 20 calls in one day is that correct?”
The funnelling technique helps to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of the interview in the following ways:
Relevance: a skilled interviewer can probe candidate’s experience to link it to the needs of the job
Validity: The more information you gain about a candidate, the more valid your prediction of how successful they would be in the job will be.
Truth: It will be harder for the candidate to tell untruths if the interviewer skillfully probes further. It is quite easy to state that you can do something in response to an open question, but when you start to drill down further only the genuine experience and skills of the candidate will show.
Subjectivity: the more depth of detail and information that is gained, the more justification an interview panel has to make an objective decision based on a range of factors.
These are questioning techniques that shouldn’t be used:
- Don’t ask leading questions – this is where you basically put the answer you are looking for into the candidate’s mouth. “so you would say you are confident on the phone?” – nobody in their right mind would say “no actually I’m not” would they!
- Closed questions should only be used in the context of the funnelling technique as above – try not to use them as the opening questions as they will only attract yes or no answers. “have you worked in sales before?”
- Multiple questions should be avoided as they are confusing and you will just end up repeating the different elements of the question for the candidate. Ask each section as a separate question.
Using a combination of behavioural and hypothetical questions will allow candidates to draw on their experience and their own approach to the job in question:
- Behavioural questions focus on past events in a candidate’s life. The interviewer is hoping to hear of occasions when the candidate has demonstrated the abilities or behaviours most relevant to the job for which they are applying. For example, ‘Tell me about a time when you used your negotiating skills’.
- Hypothetical questions involve asking candidates how they would react or behave in specific situations, i.e. the types of situations they will encounter in the job if they are successful. For example, ‘How would you deal with several knock backs in a row?’ However, don’t rely on this type of question for all of the interview – you want to know what they have done in the past that will prepare them for this job, not just how they think they would behave in a certain situation.
Using a combination of structuring the interview around the person specification and effectively questioning the candidate as above will give you a good chance of choosing a candidate that has the necessary background, skills and personal attributes to fulfil the needs of the job.
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