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96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire SECOND EDITION Paul Falcone American Management Association New York • Atlanta • Brussels • Chicago • Mexico City San Francisco • Shanghai • Tokyo • Toronto • Washington, D.C.
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Special discounts on bulk quantities of AMACOM books are available to corporations, professional associations, and other organizations. For details, contact Special Sales Department, AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Tel: 212–903–8316. Fax: 212–903–8083. E-mail: specialsls@amanet.org Website: www.amacombooks.org/go/specialsales To view all AMACOM titles go to: www.amacombooks.org This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Falcone, Paul. 96 great interview questions to ask before you hire / Paul Falcone.—2nd ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1351-7 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-8144-1351-X (pbk.) 1. Employment interviewing. I. Title. II. Title: Ninety-six great interview questions to ask before you hire. HF5549.5.I6F35 2009 658.31124—dc22 2008025586 2009 Paul Falcone All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Printing number 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To my lovely wife and best friend, Janet, and our two wonderful kids— Nina and Sam— more inspiration than any writer could hope for.
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Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Parable xi Putting Candidates at Ease and Building Rapport xxi PART I: Inter view Questions to Identify High-Performance Candidates 1 1: For Openers: Five Traditional Interview Questions and Their Interpretations 3 2: Achievement-Anchored Questions: Measuring Individuals’ Awareness of Their Accomplishments 11 3: Holistic Interview Queries: Challenging Candidates to Assess Themselves 19 4: Questions About Career Stability 28 5: Searching for Patterns of Progression Through the Ranks 38 6: Likability Equals Compatibility: Matching Candidates’ Personalities to Your Organization’s Corporate Culture 47 7: The College Campus Recruit 58 8: Millennials—The Future Generation of Your Workforce 67 9: The Sales Interview: Differentiating Among Top Producers, Rebel Producers, and Those Who Struggle to the Minimums 85
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viii Contents 10: Senior Management Evaluations: Leaders, Mentors, and Effective Decision Makers 101 11: Pressure Cooker Interview Questions: Assessing Grace Under Fire 110 12: Generic Interview Questions Known to Challenge Candidates in the Final Rounds of Hire 118 PART II: Selecting Candidates and Making the Offer 127 13: Reference-Checking Scenarios: Administrative Support Staff 129 14: Reference-Checking Scenarios: Professional/Technical Candidates 138 15: Reference-Checking Scenarios: Senior Management Candidates 148 16: Preempting the Counteroffer: Steering Candidates Clear of Temptation 160 17: Making the Offer and Closing the Deal: Questions to Ensure That Candidates Accept Your Job Offers 168 PART III: Key Inter viewing, Reference-Checking, and Recruitment Issues 181 18: Staying Within the Law: Interview Questions to Avoid at All Costs! 183 19: Telephone Screening Interviews: Formats and Follow-Ups for Swift Information Gathering 188 20: Getting Real Information from Reference Checks 195 21: Background Checks 200 22: Reinventing Your Company’s Employment Application 207 23: Recruitment Brochures: Engaging Invitations and Introductions to Your Company 214 24: Maximizing Your Recruitment Resources 220 Interviewer’s Checklist: The 96 Questions 227 Index 233 About the Author 241
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Acknowledgments To my dear friends at AMACOM Books, especially CEO Hank Kennedy and Executive Editor Christina Parisi. Thank you for your continued friendship and faith in me. To my friends and business associates who added untold value to the development of this book as it made its way through the various rounds of editing: Dick Kaumeyer, principal of the Kaumeyer Consulting Group; Ann Kotlarski, senior litigation partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP; Barry Nadell, presi- dent of Nadell Investigations; Larry Comp and Terry Lauter, principals of LTC Performance Strategies (formerly Humanomics, Inc.); Heather Hand, vice president of human resources for Intuitive Surgical, Inc.; and Peter Sha- piro, vice president of human resources at ElectroRent Corporation—you’ve all been instrumental mentors in my career. ix
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Introduction: The Parable Once upon a time, there was a general manager in a downtown high-rise who had the final say over all new hires at her location. Although she real- ized how critical it was to identify and hire the best and the brightest talent for her firm, she really didn’t like interviewing all that much. First, she felt fairly uncomfortable having to ask all the questions and direct the whole conversation. (Those moments of awkward silence bothered her most.) Sec- ond, she wasn’t always sure of how to interpret a candidate’s responses, but she felt that digging deeper was inappropriate lest she be accused of prying. Third, and most important, she really resented the fact that job applicants were so schooled and rehearsed in their responses. ‘‘There are just too many interviewing books and training tools available that teach people the right things to say. After a while, all their responses start sounding the same, and I don’t feel like I’m actually getting to know the real person,’’ she thought. Getting past that veneer of superficial responses was detective work, and she simply didn’t have the time or the inclination to invest so much of herself into the multiple rounds of interviews necessary to bring someone aboard. After all, if the candidate doesn’t work out, she reasoned, there’s always a ninety-day probationary window in which to ‘‘undo’’ the hire, right? (Wrong! It’s not so easy to simply dismiss people in their ninety-day introductory periods anymore. And just because your employment applica- tion has ‘‘employment at will’’ verbiage doesn’t necessarily get you off the hook. Wrongful termination litigation knows no time boundaries.) Some Options As time went on and some less-than-optimal hires were made, this manager decided to improve her interviewing skills. She reasoned that making a seri- xi
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xii Introduction: The Parable ous investment in the art and science of career evaluations just once could have profound benefits throughout the rest of her career. Of course, inter- viewing is a skill that needs to be honed over and over again, but if she could just build more confidence in that one area, her whole approach to building superior business teams could become stronger. So off went the general manager to her human resources department to look into training programs, books, videos, and tapes on the topic of hiring. Wow! Was she surprised to learn of the jungle of materials available. But alas, the general manager just didn’t have that much time. The tapes and videos would’ve been great, but finding the time to listen to tapes or watch TV was often impossible. She had also heard that many of those training books focused a lot more on theory than on practical application. After all, if she had an interview pending with a programmer analyst, a human re- sources manager, a secretary, or a vice president of marketing, she needed a blueprint to successfully prepare for those specific situations. Now, the last thing she needed was some complicated text about human resources management theory. Instead, she needed a how-to guide that she could turn to ten minutes before an interview to refresh her questioning skills. For only such a tool could lay out the unique interview questions for various hiring situations. She was, after all, responsible for hiring everyone from managers to professional/technical candidates to administrative sup- port staff. Finally, and most critically, she needed to know what to look out for in the candidates’ responses that might point to danger areas or issues for fur- ther investigation. Asking the questions was, as a matter of fact, only half of the equation. Knowing how to probe for more information after the candi- date’s initial response was equally if not more important in gauging the real person behind the superficial responses. That is because the further you get away from the initial, structured query, the more you’re called upon to em- ploy your interpretative and evaluative decision-making skills. Therefore, she needed to know: • What might trip off danger signals in a candidate’s response to a par- ticular question? • What kinds of superficial responses deserve more in-depth probing? • How could she find a way of matching the candidate’s personal style to her company’s corporate culture? The Solution 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire is a practical, how-to guide for any hiring situation. This book teaches you how to evaluate:
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Introduction: The Parable xiii • What is the individual’s motivation for changing jobs? • Could your organization fill the person’s needs? • Is this individual committed to progressive career management, or is he ‘‘recruiter’s bait’’ waiting to jump at the next offer? • Worse, could your interview merely be a ploy to leverage more money at his current company by accepting a counteroffer? • Does this person adhere strictly to her job duties, or does she con- stantly assume responsibilities beyond her written job description and attempt to reinvent her job in light of her company’s changing needs? • How well does this candidate distinguish between high- and low- payoff activities, how does he handle stress, how does he accept con- structive criticism, and what kind of work ethic does he have? The Pie` ce de Re´ sistance 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire assumes that there are two levels of interviewing that are critical before you make a hiring decision: First, you interview the candidate who weaves a tale of past performance and achievements. That historical perspective helps you project what the future will look like because past behaviors will most likely be repeated. Second, you interview the candidate’s former immediate supervisors, who can verify your insights into the individual’s ability to excel in your com- pany. For only with an objective, third-party evaluation can you be sure that a candidate’s historical recounting of his performance is accurate. More significantly, third-party references are one of the most valid tools available for predicting the future. Guaranteed? No. But insightful as to what it’s like working side by side with this person every day? Absolutely! Discerning as to where the person will need the most support in the first ninety days? Of course! Incisive in terms of how best to manage the person either by providing lots of structure, direction, and feedback or by allowing him to be an independent, solo flyer with lots of autonomy and independent decision-making authority? You betcha! And while we’re at it, we’ll develop a methodology for getting former employers to open up to you over the phone and share their feelings about a particular candidate’s abilities to make a successful transition into your company. So, let’s get ready to put together an interviewing and reference- checking blueprint that will catapult your candidate-evaluation skills to new heights, increase your confidence in mastering every hiring situation, and help you build better teams of coworkers who will give your organization the competitive advantage.
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xiv Introduction: The Parable Best Practices in Recruitment and Selection This book is a complete, hands-on guide to the employment process. There’s not much theory to wade through—just questions to add immediate critical mass to your interview and suggestions for interpreting the answers you get. Written for senior managers, first-line supervisors, contingency recruit- ers, and human resources professionals, it guides you from start to finish through the entire employment process by highlighting: • Questions to ask candidates through multiple rounds of interviews • Reference-checking queries to validate your insights into the person’s ability to excel in your company • Counteroffer preparation • Job offer negotiations The premise for this book is a simple one: The best workers have the most options. Positioning yourself and your company to identify individu- als with the strongest track records and to appeal to those top performers is what the interviewing and selection process is all about. You are both buyer and seller, critical observer and attractive commodity. For nothing less than your organization’s bottom line is at stake. Legal Compliance The primary caveat, however, is to keep your questioning patterns within legal boundaries so that you don’t unnecessarily expose your company. Lost wages litigation, wrongful failure to hire, and other legal remedies exist for workers who have had their rights violated. Consequently, the queries and questioning techniques that follow will not only provide you with refresh- ing insights into candidates’ behaviors but you can rest assured that they will also keep you from running afoul of the law. Just to be safe, refer now to Chapter 18: ‘‘Staying Within the Law: Interview Questions to Avoid at All Costs!’’ It will provide you with the ten most common errors to look out for. Behavioral Interview Questions In addition, the most successful technique for adding dimension to superfi- cial answers lies in employing a behavioral interview questioning format. Behavioral interviewing techniques attempt to relate a candidate’s answers to specific past experiences and focus on projecting potential performance from past actions. By relating a candidate’s answers to specific past experi- ences, you’ll develop much more reliable indicators of how the individual
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Introduction: The Parable xv will most likely act in the future. Behavioral questions do not deny that people can learn from their mistakes and alter their behaviors. They do, however, assume that a person’s future behavior will closely reflect past actions. Behavioral interview questions call for on-the-spot self-analysis. There are two main types of behavioral formats: self-appraisal and situational questions. Self-appraisal queries ask a candidate, ‘‘What is it about you that makes you feel a certain way or want to do something?’’ For example, ‘‘What is it about you that makes you get totally involved in your work to a point where you lose track of the time?’’ Similarly, the self-appraisal format may ask for a third-party validation of your actions: ‘‘What would your supervi- sor say about that?’’ Other examples of self-appraisal queries include: ‘‘On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 meaning that you’re lenient and understanding, 10 meaning that you’re demanding and critical), how do you see yourself as a supervisor? Why?’’ ‘‘If you had the choice of working in a marketing or a finance environment, which would you choose and why?’’ ‘‘In the future, how do you think you would handle an employee termination in those same circumstances?’’ Situational queries, like self-appraisal queries, look for concrete experi- ence as an indicator of future behavior. The standard behavioral interview- ing query begins with the paradigm, ‘‘Tell me about a time when you took action without getting your boss’s prior approval,’’ ‘‘Describe the last time you assumed responsibility for a task that was clearly outside of your job description,’’ or ‘‘Give me an example of a time when you had to make a critical decision in your boss’s absence.’’ Notice the specific linkage to con- crete past experiences and situations. The beauty of this questioning methodology is that it can be applied to anything: a candidate’s greatest strengths and weaknesses, his supervisory and sales styles, his communication skills, or the last time he fired someone. As a result, behavioral questions ensure spontaneity since candidates can’t prepare for them in advance. Rehearsed answers to traditional queries go by the wayside in this ad hoc interviewing environment where candidates tell stories about their real-life performance. And because they tie responses to concrete past actions, they minimize the candidate’s inclination to exagger- ate answers. Therefore, you’re assured of more accurate answers in the selec- tion process, and you’re provided with specific ammunition to use later down the line in the reference-checking process. Figure I-1 is a wishbone diagram showing the unpredictable course of
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xvi Introduction: The Parable Figure I-1. The unpredictable course of behavioral interview questioning. ‘‘Tell me about a time when you . . . felt it important to take it upon yourself to bring bad news to your boss.’’ How could you have handled the situation differently?How would you handle that same situation in the future?of your actions?What kinds of outside influences affected the outcomeyour decision in that situation?How would your boss have evaluated a behavioral interviewing question. Watch where the behavioral interview questions lead this conversation. Because this technique is critical to ad- vanced candidate evaluations, we’ll employ it throughout the rest of the book. How Is This Book Structured? 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire is divided into twenty-four chapters. Parts I and II, the first seventeen chapters, contain a total of ninety- six questions, approximately five questions per chapter. Each chapter either addresses individual characteristics (for identifying a candidate’s career sta- bility or promotions through the ranks, for example) or highlights functional interviewing strategies (for evaluating secretaries, senior managers, sales- people, or professional/technical staff). Although every attempt has been made to include the most practical queries for a specific hiring need, no topic is all-inclusive. For example, al- though there are ten primary questions to ask sales candidates, there are other areas of the book that will complement those ten key questions. You
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Introduction: The Parable xvii might logically pull information out of the chapters on career stability, achievement-anchored questions, or likability and compatibility to round out your sales interview. Similarly, you could employ traditional queries with holistic interviewing questions when evaluating professional/technical candidates like accountants, programmers, or paralegals. The point is, it’s up to you to mix and match the questioning techniques as you see fit. One thing is for sure, though: Talent doesn’t exist in a vacuum and has to be benchmarked to your style of doing business. Consequently, you’ll have plenty of latitude to customize the information for your particular inter- viewing situation! You’ll note as well that many of the questions are two-pronged queries that require the candidate to make logical connections and provide greater background depth in response. Those connectors not only measure how well the individual breaks down information into its component parts, but also force the candidate to tie together all the loose ends when concluding. Two-pronged questions are also beneficial because they allow you, the inter- viewer, to be more specific in your queries. The old one-liners don’t go far enough nowadays in gathering the in-depth data necessary to make a hiring calculation. By stating your questions more specifically and intimating how you want the candidate to interpret your query, you’ll automatically in- crease your control of the hiring situation. High-Performance Questioning Techniques for a Competitive Business Environment The ‘‘Why Ask This Question?’’ section after each query attempts to crystal- lize why the question is indeed valid. It addresses what you are attempting to measure in a candidate’s response. It also specifies the ideal circum- stances for employing the question in sales, secretarial, professional/techni- cal, or senior management interviews. The ‘‘Analyzing the Response’’ section after the query is typically much longer because it attempts to highlight: • What you should expect to hear in a typical candidate’s response • What variations on this questioning theme exist to perhaps rephrase the query in a slightly different manner • What danger signs you should look out for in evaluating candidate responses • How you could employ behavioral interviewing techniques to add concrete, historical dimensions to the individual’s response and thereby avoid canned and rehearsed answers
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xviii Introduction: The Parable • How you could look for contrary evidence that further challenges can- didates to develop or defend their answers • How you would subsequently verify a candidate’s responses via a reference check A key advantage to this book therefore lies not only in the cataloging of high-yield questions for various hiring situations but also in the quick and insightful interpretations of expected responses. After all, once you’re fore- warned about the hot buttons and danger zones that could spell sub par performance or an unacceptable work ethic, you’ll be better equipped to avoid marginal hires. And since no human being is perfect, you will be in a better position for damage control if you understand each candidate’s short- comings. You will gain these critical insights both through information that the candidate volunteers during your interview and through external veri- fications (reference checks from past employers). Finally, Part III (Chapters 18 through 24) provides practical information in terms of getting the most for your recruitment dollar while minimizing your legal exposure. Chapter 18, ‘‘Staying Within the Law: Interview Questions to Avoid at All Costs!’’ will help you and your management team steer clear of the inter- viewing snare posed by the ten key questions that could land your company in legal hot water and suggests suitable alternatives for deriving the infor- mation that you want to know. Chapter 19, ‘‘Telephone Screening Interviews: Formats and Follow- Ups for Swift Information Gathering,’’ takes a practical look at phone assess- ments in order to determine whether a candidate is qualified for an in- person meeting. Such screening interviews are exceptionally effective at guarding your time since a ten minute up-front investment could potentially save hours of your (and a candidate’s) time. Employ the matrix in this sec- tion to quickly and efficiently determine a candidate’s viability! Chapter 20, ‘‘Getting Real Information from Reference Checks,’’ will show you how to structure the reference-checking telephone call itself so that you can build immediate rapport and honest communication with the prior supervisor. Chapter 21, ‘‘Background Checks,’’ includes critical information on how to select background-checking firms, how much to expect to pay for their services, and the liability your company may face in terms of theft, violence, and wrongful hiring and retention claims if you fail to conduct criminal background checks. We’ll also explore newly evolving areas for investiga- tion, including civil records checks as well as social networking checks. Chapter 22, ‘‘Reinventing Your Company’s Employment Application,’’
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Introduction: The Parable xix will surprise you when you learn how many questions you can legally ask about in writing on the application itself! In addition, we’ll help you redesign your current form to highlight critical issues in candidates’ backgrounds and further strengthen your questioning skills. Chapter 23, ‘‘Recruitment Brochures: Engaging Invitations and Intro- ductions to Your Company,’’ will show you a low-cost method to wow can- didates before they even walk in the door. Talent marketing doesn’t get any easier than this, yet so few companies employ this creative and fun ap- proach. Chapter 24, ‘‘Maximizing Your Recruitment Resources,’’ will provide a cost-benefit analysis for choosing contingency recruitment versus retained search firms. It will also address the critical role that research firms provide in unbundling the search process. Finally, it will highlight one of the best- kept secrets in town for locating high-probability candidates for free—your local outplacement firm’s job development department. So, pick up a pencil and a highlighter and join me for a behind-the- scenes look at sophisticated candidate evaluation techniques that will maxi- mize all your recruitment and selection efforts. Bear in mind, however, that this book is not intended as a legal guide for the complex issues surrounding candidate selection, reference checking, and other aspects of hiring and employment practices. Because the book does not purport to render legal advice, it should not be used in place of an attorney when proper legal counsel and guidance become necessary.
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