Creating Interview Questions
“The Key To Successful Interviews”
Creating interview questions is a skill you need to learn if you are going to be successful in your hiring. The majority of the data used to make the hiring decision comes from the interview process. And, the data you get in the interview is totally dependent on the questions you ask.
Ask good interview questions and you get good data. And having good data is the fastest way to hire good people and avoid those costly hiring mistakes. Here’s the good news:
“Creating Interview Questions Is Easy”
Creating interview questions is a simple 3-step process.
- Identify the piece of data you need
- Identify an opportunity the person had to demonstrate it
- Create your question
Identify The Piece Of Data You Need
You always start the process by identifying the piece of data you need. Your list of critical job requirements should tell you exactly what you need to know about the person. Pick a requirement and determine exactly what piece of data is needed. When hiring a person for a phone sales team you need to know if the person quickly establishes rapport over the phone.
You would want to know if the person works well as part of a team when hiring a person into a design team. You would want to know if the person pays attention to detail when hiring into a data entry position. Clearly identify what data is needed by working through the list of critical job requirements.
Identify an opportunity the person had to demonstrate the requirement
The next step in creating the interview questions is to work through the raw data available for the candidate. This is usually an application and/or a resume. Look for situations where the person had the opportunity to demonstrate the sought after behavior.
Did the person ever have the opportunity to establish rapport over the phone? Did they work as part of a team? How about an opportunity to demonstrate attention to detail?
At this point in the hiring process you should have a candidate pool that that has been screened and is at least in the ball park. (Checkout the articles on resume reading and phone interview tips) Finding similar examples should not be very hard. Work through the person’s background and look for situations that are the same or similar to those on your job.
Create your questions
The final step is to put it all together and create the list of interview questions. Using the first example above, the goal is to determine if the person establishes rapport quickly over the phone. The resume states they currently work in a telesales role. Your interview questions might be:
“Who was the last new customer that you sold?”
“How did you get their attention on the phone?”
“What did you do to establish credibility with the person?”
This one example generated 3 very good questions. You would certainly follow up on the questions as well. The goal is to get as much information about how the person acted in that particular situation.
In conclusion, creating interview questions does not need to be difficult or time consuming. Follow the simple 3-step process in this article and you will be hiring great new employees in no time flat.
There are articles about the best interview questions, behavioral interview questions, second interview questions and there is a full page of sample interview questions included in this blog.
