Some Smart Questions for Your Next Interviewee

Posted by James on March 12, 2019 at 10:58 AM
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InterviewingIs this a familiar scenario?

You have a new applicant coming to interview for a job opening. She or he is due to arrive within the hour. You've looked over the candidate's résumé at length, but you still haven't assembled any questions for the impending discussion. Desperate, you scratch out some questions on a piece of paper; something about the person's greatest strength or worst day on the job or how would s/he define excellent customer service? Fine...but what will these questions really tell you about a candidate's suitability for the exact position you're hiring for?

Interview questions should be thoughtful. They should cause the applicant to really think about him or herself in terms of the job they are under consideration for. The questions should have intent, and they should provide you with useable insights so that you can make the most informed decision possible. The typical goal, after all, is to have this person be a productive part of your organization for some time, and the more clearly you can envision such a circumstance, the more likely it is that you will achieve that objective to everyone's satisfaction.

To help, we've assembled some sample interview questions that you might use to spark discussion and a deep level of understanding about your candidates in the too-brief time you have them. Importantly, these questions are grouped by category, which should assist you in evaluating candidates for specific areas of responsibility or purpose.

Click below to download the list of interview questions now!
Sample Interview Questions

The best way to use these questions is pairing them with a Human Capital Management system that has recruitment and applicant tracking capabilities. Advanced software, such as People Savvy HCM, allows you to schedule and manage the hiring process for any number of applicants. As you identify viable candidates for your opening, they can be entered into the system, where contact information, résumés, references, and dynamic communications can all be stored and referenced by everyone in your organization who is involved in hiring.

For example, when you are ready to schedule an interview, you can set the date, time, place, and participants, notify the members of your interview team, and email the candidate all from the same screen.

scheduling an interview

As the interviews take place, interviewers can update the applicant's file with their notes and impressions about candidates for all to review, creating a comprehensive perspective on the applicant. This is a great place to house the questions you want to ask as well as the applicant's responses to them.

interview questions and answers

Better yet, when you decide to hire a candidate to fill the vacancy, a fully integrated system like People Savvy HCM allows you to instantly and conveniently bring all of the applicant's information into your human resources, payroll, and labor management modules at the same time with zero data re-entry. Such efficiencies dramatically reduce administrative effort and let you focus on getting to know your new hire as a person and an employee, rather than drowning in data entry.

hire with minimal effort

For additional details on how a unified Human Capital Management solution can help your organization with recruiting and hiring tasks, download our Talent Acquisition Solution data sheet.
Talant Acquisition Solution

And if you're interested in seeing how it can streamline candidate interviews and everything that comes after hiring, get in touch with us today!

Topics: Human Capital Management, Human Resources, Recruiting

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