HR Mistake Of The Week: Why One Of The Most Common Interview Questions Is Pointless

December 1, 2011 by Ruth Graham

There are a few questions that job-seekers can count on popping up at just about every interview. “What’s your biggest weakness?” used to be one of them, until it became so cliched it turned into a joke. One classic that’s still going strong, however, is: “Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond to do X at your job.” For an interviewee, it’s a great question, because it’s a chance to tell a story about you at your best. But the question is totally useless for an interviewer. Luckily, there’s an easy fix.

Carol Quinn founded the consulting firm Hire Authority in 1998, and she pinpointed this common question as a particular waste of time for interviewers who really want to suss out a candidate’s potential. She promotes a method she calls “motivation-based interviewing,” which aims to assess an applicant’s future performance potential, rather than just their current skills.

Quinn makes the case that the ideal interview question can prompt a wide range of responses, from excellent to clearly sub-par. “When you ask someone to tell you about a happy-ending story, you’re going to get a feel-good, happy-ending story from everyone, because that’s what you asked for,” she said. The question has no range.

Let’s say you’re interviewing a candidate for a job in customer service. You ask her, “Tell me about a time you went above and beyond to satisfy a customer.” She tells you a nice story, just like every other candidate has done. As Quinn put it, “It’s like asking, ‘You’re really good at customer service, right?’ Of course they’ll say, ‘Yes.’”

Here’s how to tweak the question in this case so it’s actually useful. Ask instead: “Tell me about a specific time you dealt with an irate customer.” This change adds an obstacle to the question. “Now, you can get answers where someone went above and beyond and they can tell you about the specific details, or they can share with you a time they did just enough — no more, no less — or they could tell you a time the customer was impossible to please and there was nothing they could do about it,” Quinn explained. “You can get a full range of possible answers.”

By framing the question so it includes an obstacle, you prompt a much wider range of answers, and you also get extra insight into how the candidate deals with challenges. “When the going gets tough not everyone kicks into high gear,” Quinn said. “The high achievers do, but many others start making excuses, blame the obstacles, or become unmotivated.” A good interview question draws this information out of an applicant, instead of just having them tell nice story.

Knowledge Centre Blog

HR Mistake Of The Week: Why One Of The Most Common Interview Questions Is Pointless

Leave a Reply Cancel reply