Kimberly was preparing for the interview. She just moved to town and was earnest in her job search. The headhunter gave her some questions to help prepare responses in advance.
What sets you apart from the other candidates applying for this position?
“Kimberly, the problem with this question is that the interviewer has no idea how this will help make a proper hiring decision. He could be playing amateur psychologist, to see how you view your self esteem issues, perhaps he could detect an arrogant attitude. I don’t know what information he would be looking for with this question. It is likely the interviewer doesn’t know either.
“So what do I do?” asked Kimberly.
“I would rephrase the question, change it to a better question that will give the interviewer tangible information on which to make a good hiring decision. It might sound like this.
I can’t answer that question because I don’t know the other candidates or their accomplishments. But I can tell you what I have done related to the core skills outlined in the job description. One primary responsibility, you said, is to handle change orders through your system. At the ABC Company, we had a problem with change orders, so I created a short checklist of the major problems created by change orders. There were only eight things on the list, but by watching those critical items, we reduced unscheduled shutdown from seven hours per week to 28 minutes per week. Would you like to see the list?
“Always try to move the interviewer back to specific things you have done in the past related to the most important core skills. Stay away from opinion and hypothetical responses. Your opinion might be different than the interviewer. And I will guarantee your hypothetical solution will be different than what the interviewer was thinking. Either way, you lose. Describe your real past experience. The interviewer can’t argue with that.” -TF
Good interviewer should look for some past experience, rather than opinion. One of questions I ask is “Are you a quick-learner?”. Everyone says “yes”. My answer is “Prove it”.
It’s a bit tricky, but generally one can’t prove it and not say anything about previous experience at the same time. I believe questions asked during the interview shoul be direct. If someone wants to play a psychologist – nothing easier. It’s enough to listen carefully and analyze. There are lots of information that can be extracted from the interview even if they weren’t said loud.
Pawel,
Thank you for your comment. Being a quick learner is an important skill for most positions. My favorite question is “Tell me about a time when you had to learn something quickly?”
I agree with your tactic, but the delivery could be improved so it doesn’t cloud the message.
Rightly or wrongly (I’m probably one of the idiots referred to in the previous post), the reaction I’d have to a response phrased the way it was done here was “they’re negative.” This is because the first thing out of the person’s mouth was “I can’t.”
Regret, thank you for your comment. I guess I was just trying to be tactful in deference to the interviewer. Notice I left out the word idiot in this response. Unfortunately, because the interviewer has the upper hand and the power in the conversation, I can’t grab him by the shoulders and shake the snot out of him just because he asks a silly question. Sorry, I will try to control myself next time.
Tom, I think it will be great if you write a bit more about techniques/questions/etc you use during interviews. I think there’re many managers who’d like to see interviewer perspective also and improve their own interviewing techniques.
Pawel,
We are thinking about putting up a site called hiringquestions.com which would talk about the overall philosophy of behavioral interviewing and begin to build a database of great interview questions. So, you are saying there might be some interest?
Tom I interview people that have a langue or education barrier or both. If I ask a question that takes some kind of thought I would hate to see the result. They may just get up and walk out thinking that the job is not for them. Should you stick with questions on how a person works and works with others or should you rely on the questions that determinds if they are a good worker and can learn the position quickly.