By Omer Tadjer, CEO and co-founder of Comeet
Hiring mistakes and turnover can be costly for any organization; according to the Society for Human Resource Management, it can cost as much as half of an employee’s annual salary to replace them. Hiring the right employees in the first place can help prevent your losses by ensuring that the people you add to your team truly belong there and will stick around for the long term.
Asking the right questions during the hiring period can help narrow down a field of applicants and ensure that you are hiring the best person for the job.
It also helps you identify the most promising candidates, aids inexperienced interviewers to have meaningful and worthwhile conversations, ensures that the candidate evaluation process is tightly aligned with the job description, and also prevents the asking of illegal or otherwise inappropriate questions.Which questions should you ask – and why do they matter? These beyond the basics questions could give you some valuable insight into how an applicant thinks and what they are truly like.
How did/do you ____?
Asking a question related to the creative process or how a task was handled allows the candidate to truly show off their communication skills and give an insight into their personality. Giving the applicant a chance to expound and offer the information they want to could reveal interesting information about their creative process and give you an idea of what to expect. Candidates that are open and passionate about their work will shine when it comes to this type of question.
What was the best part about (your last job)?
The answer here will give you some insight into not only the candidate’s past performance, but what is important to them. This question can also bring out some conversation that might not show up in other queries (as in “our team was great, but management was terrible”).
What task did you complete well – but wouldn’t want to do again?
HubSpot VP Michael Redbord suggests this question, which reveals key insights into how the prospect feels about everything from working additional hours to performing menial labor in a pinch.
A few other open ended questions that can give you insight into how well the candidate will match your organizations include:
- What few businesses or people do you admire – and why?
- What does your perfect dream job look like?
- Is there anything we should have asked you – but didn’t? The answers here can be astonishing, from revealing a criminal history and college study abroad experience, to even a shared hobby or interest.
- Breaking up your regular list of questions with some open ended and less familiar ones can give your perfect applicant a chance to shine – and help identify those who look great on paper but aren’t the right match for your organization. The more you learn about a potential applicant through the interviewing process, the less likely you are to make a costly error when it comes to choosing the top candidate for the job.
Omer Tadjer is the CEO and co-founder of Comeet, a collaborative recruiting company that provides innovative software that transforms the way companies hire new employees. Omer has been involved in high-tech companies for more than 15 years, a decade of which was devoted to software development and managing development teams. Omer is passionate about applying his practical IT and management experience to creating valuable products and transforming the way the HR industry operates.
