Good Interview Questions

[V]

You don't get caught if you're good at it. Obviously you can't be dead wrong, but if you have some shades of right in your answer you'll always be ok, as long as you have the confidence in your tone to go with.

I really can't speak for other jobs, but in my department, if I answer "I dunno" or "I'll get back to you" the client really starts to wonder why he's paying me thousands of dollars. The consultant is supposed to know everything, and make no mistakes. It's unreasonable, but no one ever said clients were reasonable.

[Red Mile Style]

I think one of the best questions to ask in an interview is to get the person being interviewed to tell you a joke. Chances are if this person can not tell you at least one joke, they're not easy to work with, take life too seriously and have no sense of humour. Plus if it's off color or this is the strongest part of the interview (meaning they don't take life seriously enough) it can also help with finding out what type of person you are potentially hiring.

[Frank the Tank]

If you are interviewing a guy, ask him what he'd do with a million dollars. If he says "two chicks", give him the job on the spot.

[Cheese]

Question...Give me your best Elvis Presley impression.

Answer...If they get up and lie flat on their back on the floor, arms crossed over their chest, eyes closed, hire him/her.

Seriously...erm...Ive never been asked hypothetical questions as outilined above. Generally speaking the interviews Ive had have been extremely technical/personal, generally requiring a minimum of 2-3 sessions and each lasting a minimum of 2 hours per session. After those interviews there isnt much left to question or understand about an employee or employer, knowledge wise or personally. Preparation is integral.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by fotze

and by "the job" you mean something else.

Thanks Fotze. Now I need a new keyboard.

This one has coffee all over it now.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Preparation is integral.

Yup, this is key. On both sides. Even at a simple level - e.g. for a job seeker, cruise around the company's website, or read some pamphlets, etc. Its nothing major, may take you an hour or 2, but well worth it.

Cheers.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by fotze

and by "the job" you mean something else.

You son of a.......

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Dominicwasalreadytaken

My boss actually does want me to change my workaholic ways. He says I'm going to burn myself out. He's probably right.

Anyways, my toughest question I've ever been asked is this:

"If you are in a canoe over the deepest part of the ocean and you were to drop a bowling ball over the edge, how long would it take for the ball to hit the ocean floor".

The answer the boss is looking for isn't "I dunno" or a blatant guess. He wants to see an educated guess based on a couple of assumptions. I was nowhere near the right answer, but I did exactly what he wanted to see, and he's told me that this question was one of the biggest reasons I got the job, since there seemed to be so little to differentiate between each of us.

Yes, these types of questions are very relevant in finding out how someone thinks. As said, they don't care about the answer, they care how you got to it. I faced something similar in an Engineering interview, except it was:

How many ping pong balls would fit inside the cabin of a 747?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

These questions about the ping pong balls, and the bowling ball remind me of one of my reservoir engineering profs.

He honestly didn't care if you got the right answer, as long as your method was sound.

As long as you did all the right steps, and the wrong answer was only a matter of a math error, or accidentially using the wrong value, he didn't care, you could still get full marks for the question.

His view was that he wasn't teaching arithmetic, and that we wouldn't be in his class if we didn't know how to add, so there was no point deducting marks for honest mistakes.

[PYroMaNiaC]

Originally Posted by fotze

You've never worked for the government. Power words and parroting your supervisor are pure gold in that environment.

Ahhh, but is the public impressed with a job well done or are they cynical about the goverment? The lies and deceit get a little tiring after a while.

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by Dominicwasalreadytaken

You don't get caught if you're good at it. Obviously you can't be dead wrong, but if you have some shades of right in your answer you'll always be ok, as long as you have the confidence in your tone to go with.

I really can't speak for other jobs, but in my department, if I answer "I dunno" or "I'll get back to you" the client really starts to wonder why he's paying me thousands of dollars. The consultant is supposed to know everything, and make no mistakes. It's unreasonable, but no one ever said clients were reasonable.

Where do you work again? I just want to know so I can never ever go there for answers or advice. If getting the sale justifies lying and making things up for you...let's just say I have a different moral stance.

[V]

It's not about the sale, although sometimes I wonder if I'm more salesman than engineer.

It's about putting the owner's mind at ease. And if I can do that, it makes my job a whole lot easier. So I make the owner happy, and then me and the contractor go on site and figure out the most effective solution. And then everyone's happy.

[I_H8_Crawford]

One of my fav questions to ask is:
"If you were hiring for this position, what abilities and characteristics would you look for in a potential candidate?"

[CaptainCrunch]

Interviewing just by asking straight questions or goofy questions like the bowling ball will often not get you the best client, especially in the day and age of the counterfeit candidate. that person who has all of the answers, and comes completely prepared for the interview, then lands the job and three months later and three months salary later your letting him/her go because while they sounded like the perfect fit and answered all of the questions right, they didn't have the applicable skills, or knowledge or behavior that were required in the job.

One of the tools that these people use are educational websites like wetfeet.org that can prepare a candidate for almost anything that you can throw at them.

Some ideas or recommendations that I could give you would be.

1. Use personality Profiling tests, we use one that works really well, and even has false flag indicators. Also if your putting this person into a team or a department make your best performer in that department write it as well, that way you have a comparison between your candidate and your "Top Performer".

2) Find a way to test thier applicable skills before they interview, if they need to use a certain software product, either buy commercially available tests, or create one of your own.

3) The initial interview should be fairly quick and general, talk a bit about the role, and a bit about your company culture, and test them on thier behavior, make sure that you get specific examples.

4) Do your reference checks, but request permission to phone a random former employer instead of letting them supply you with a couple of references (The oldest rule in the book is "Everybody has two friends)

5) The second interview should be a panel interview with a little more pressure, attendee's should be depending on the position that your hiring for either from your leadership team, or the manager that the employee is going to be working for, someone from HR and yourself. When you panel your asking specific questions about past performances, successes and failures and your looking for detail and examples that they can't make up on the spot.

We actually publish some pretty good white papers on hiring and retention issues if any of you are interested, send me a PM, and I can provide you with them.

[Kerplunk]

I once had an interview for a programming position where they asked a load of "thinking" questions, and it was annoying as hell...during the two hour interview, I had 6 of those questions, and maybe 3 about previous experience. I kinda understand the need for one or two, but that was the most ######ed one I've ever done.

The thing I hate about "thinking" questions is that it just shows someone can solve that specific problem, and rarely is within the context of the job your going for. I've known programmers that could solve those really easily, but couldn't design or code worth a crap.

I think good interview questions are ones that will find out if the person has the skills and personality for the position being filled. If you want some useless filler questions (i.e. how do you divide up 100 coins between 6 pirates), doing a search for “technical interview questions” on Google usually gives some.

[pope04]

Nice thread. I'll be re-entering the job force in a couple months or so, and I appreciate this insight.

[V]

I think my current boss has the best strategy of them all. He only hires people that someone inside the company knows and can vouch for. His company has existed for 6 years now, and he's lost only 1 employee (not including two girls to maternity leave).

I think when I sat down for my interview with him he had already decided to hire me, based on three people's opinions from inside the company. I remarked after the interview that it seemed he spent far more time selling the company to me than me selling myself to the company. I thought it was odd at the time, but he's really shown that it works.

[Eastern Girl]

Didn't want to start a new thread so I had to revive this thread to ask a question related to interviews. I just had a phone interview with a company and I am not sure how it went. I think I did well overall, but there were some questions where I think I stumbled a little. She originally told me that it would take about ten minutes. It ended up lasting a little over an hour. She gave me a lot of information about the job both at the beginning and towards the end of the conversation. I asked her a lot of questions about the job as well when she asked if I had any. She made a few jokes during the interview, it felt fairly casual, so that made me think I have a chance, but I have had phone interviews in the past where I thought that I did well and didn't end up with the job. So what do the experts of CP think? Does this sound like I have a chance at this job? or was I being humoured? I really want this job.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

\She originally told me that it would take about ten minutes. It ended up lasting a little over an hour. She gave me a lot of information about the job both at the beginning and towards the end of the conversation.

Does this sound like I have a chance at this job? or was I being humoured? I really want this job.

This sounds good. If they were just going to humour you, I don't think that they would have wasted an hour on the phone with you instead of 10 min. They appear to me to be interested in you...just keep in mind that this doesn't guarantee that you'll get the job, but it sounds like you have a good shot.

[Eastern Girl]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

This sounds good. If they were just going to humour you, I don't think that they would have wasted an hour on the phone with you instead of 10 min. They appear to me to be interested in you...just keep in mind that this doesn't guarantee that you'll get the job, but it sounds like you have a good shot.

Yeah, I know it's not a guarantee. I just wasn't sure what to think. I started out fairly confident but then I started stumbling towards the end of the conversation so I wasn't sure what to think. Just wanted to see what others thought about it.
Thanks for the response.