Top interview techniques to find the best candidate

Household & Personal Products Industry, Oct, 2006 by Patrick B. Ropella

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE popularized the question, "Is that your final answer?" That query became a catchphrase that helped reinvent the TV game show and, of course, produced millions of dollars for ABC.

Questions are the most effective form of verbal behavior you can use to persuade, negotiate, learn and even teach. Socrates used questions--the Socratic Method--to teach his students life's lessons.

Skilled sales people spend 20% of their time speaking and 80% listening--they question persistently to get people talking. Skilled negotiators, professional interviewers, coaches and managers all recognize that questioning is the most effective way to take control of a situation and get the results you want.

Many people believe that certain types of questions are better than others. As your teachers told you, there's no such thing as a stupid question, but the trick is using the right question at the right time. The following techniques will help you refine your ability to get to the "final answer."

There are a wide range of questions available to the interviewer, but some are much better than others when it comes to finding the right person for the job. Here's a look at several of them and the pros and cons of each.

Close-Ended: Yes or No. True or False. Would you like the red or the white? Close-ended questions require the respondent to choose an answer from a limited set of options. Close-ended questions are useful in obtaining commitment (e.g., Can you meet with me on Monday?) and when verifying information (e.g., You graduated in 1987?).

Unfortunately, close-ended questions are often misused--a person asks a question for which there is obviously only one acceptable answer, e.g., "Are you organized?" When these "one correct answer" questions are asked, the interviewer learns nothing from the exchange. Another drawback to close-ended questions is that they do not encourage dialogue.

Open-Ended: These questions require a descriptive response. "What makes you successful?" "Why did you decide to become a chemical engineer?" Designed to yield a detailed response, open-ended questions are sometimes phrased more like a command, such as, "Tell me more about that."

Open-ended questions give the respondent a great deal of freedom. The challenge with open-ended questions is keeping control and keeping interviews from turning into run-away trains. To get the information you seek, you may have to re-ask the same questions in different ways. There is an old adage that says: "To learn the truth, ask the same question three times, and take the third answer."

Behavioral: In job interviewing, a widely-held belief is that past performance is the best predictor of future behavior. Behavioral questions are intended to discover specific examples of past actions. These types of questions often start with, "Please give me an example of a time when ..." or "Tell me about ..."

When asking behavioral questions, don't settle for generalizations. Seek specific and detailed examples of behavior. When a person can't provide a personal example, they are not likely to exhibit the behavior you want.

Situation-Response: While behavioral examples may be the best predictors of future performance, situation-response questions are an excellent way to test a candidate's business savvy and street smarts. As the name implies, this questioning technique involves presenting the candidate with a situation and asking how he or she would respond. The best situation-response questions are based in real-life examples and related to the type of work to be performed.

When evaluating situation-response answers, consider both the correctness of the solution offered and the reasoning behind the decision. Sometimes you may discover a person has great reasoning and decision-making skills, but lacks experience that can be gained on the job. Of course, you may also discover someone who just doesn't know what he or she is talking about!

Cognitive Process: Microsoft has always been a proponent of hiring the smartest people it can find. During interviews, Microsoft execs love to test a candidate's ability to think by asking seemingly impossible questions, like: "Why are manhole covers round?" "How many tablespoons of water are in an Olympic-sized swimming pool?" On the surface, these questions may seem ridiculous, or as if someone pulled a card from a Trivial Pursuit game. But the intent of these questions is not to learn the right answer; it is to hear how the candidate approaches the problem. Does the candidate get frustrated and give up? Does he ask probing questions in response? Does he follow a logical process to evaluate the problem?

If you're seeking the best people available in the chemical industry, you want to be sure they can think on their feet. The best way to accomplish this task is by asking cognitive process questions.

Assumptive: Assumptive questions contain a built-in assumption that will be confirmed or denied by the response. For example, asking someone, "Tell me about the last time you skipped work" assumes the person has skipped out on work in the past. If the person provides an explanation of the assumption, then the assumption is true. If the person denies the assumption, it is likely to be false.