By Raleigh Consulting Group: George Alwon, Sarah Van, Donna Hall, Mark Kelly, Rob Ferguson.
To find top employees and hire the right job candidates, it’s crucial to use smart interviewing tactics to uncover the candidate's true skills, strengths, and weaknesses. This involves using questions that go beyond the standard "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" and instead focusing on the candidate’s actual work habits. Conducting behavior-based interviews is an effective way to garner this information.
Behavior-based interviewing has been around for over 30 years, and the practice has continued to gain momentum as an extremely effective way to help ensure the hire of skilled and competent employees. Behavior-based interviewing is defined as an analysis of a candidate's potential abilities by examining skills that have been used in past job performance.
These kinds of behavioral questions require a candidate to relate real situations that demonstrate how their strengths and weaknesses are exhibited on the job. For example, rather than asking candidates to describe their people skills or problem-solving abilities, it is more useful to have them explain a recent problem or situation they experienced with a difficult customer and how they handled it. The real-life answer is more insightful than a skill description because it provides an actual scenario in which the candidate applied their skills.
The following tips can help you compile a list of questions that will enable you to assess whether a candidate is a good fit for a particular position and for your organization.
Some tips for developing behavioral based interview questions:
- Prepare a list beforehand of what skills and behaviors are relevant to the position. If a position does not require teamwork, for example, there's no point in asking a question about the candidate’s team experiences.
- Make sure your questions are open ended. Avoid questions that allow for a "yes" or "no" answer by structuring them to begin with “tell me about a time," "give me an example," or other phrases that invite a detailed response.
- The same questions should be asked to all candidates in the interview process, so that you are evaluating the candidates in a consistent manner.
- Get as many details as possible. If the first account of the candidate's experience is too broad, you may need to probe further. This might involve allowing the candidate some silent time to think about his or her answer thoroughly.
- Review your questions to ensure they provide you with a complete picture of the candidate's background. You want to obtain more than a list of the person's skills, but rather a comprehensive understanding of how they've performed in the past and a good idea of how they'll perform in your work environment.
- Remember, it’s not about finding people with the right experience. It's about finding people with the right mind-set. You should hire for attitude and train for skill.
Some examples of behavioral based interview questions:
- Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way.
- Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills.
- Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
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