4 Helpful Questions I’ve Been Making in Interviews that Make All the Difference

So I’m going to share with you 4 examples of questions you can ask in your next interview. If you don’t have any prospects of interviewing someone in the medium/long term, you can always take the opportunity to prepare yourself in case you go for an interview.

4 Questions:

1. When was the last time you said “no” and why?

2. Tell me about a challenge you’ve overcome and how.

3. Imagine you have two people on your team who are in conflict with each other. What do you do?

4. When was the last time you learned something new and what?

As you may have noticed, there is one thing common to all these questions: an open answer. Thus, you leave the interviewee to have space to elaborate on an answer and you can analyze their reasoning process.

It’s a way to analyze several things at once:

- Attitude to questions/challenges

- Choice of examples for answers

- Time in the decision process

- Critical spirit and curiosity

- Empathy and collaboration

- Power of synthesis

- Communication Skills

The truth is that, regardless of the challenge or the new learning you have done, you can check if you are someone with the right attitude and mindset to make a perfect fit for your team.

Remember that technical knowledge is something you can always teach.

The posture and values, no.

I’ve already hired people who technically gave the wrong answers but had the right attitude and there was real potential for growth and evolution. So, in your next interview (whether you are the interviewee or the interviewer) try to focus on posture, empathy, and willingness to learn as these are the elements that will contribute to a good environment and continuous evolution in your team 😉

Other tips for an effective interview:

1. Prepare the interview - take some time to prepare the questions and think about the main soft skills you are looking for. It is very important to have a clear idea of the ideal candidate so it becomes easier to know right away if it is a perfect fit or not.

2. Always listen more than you talk - is very important to be an active listener so you can analyze all the data that you are receiving properly

3. Take notes - At the beginning of the interview, tell the other person that you will be taking notes so the other person doesn't think that you are not listening or doing other work things at the same time. It is important to write everything that you notice that is important. Write down what you feel about the answers, the posture, keywords, everything that is important for you to quickly identify how the interview went because if you are doing several interviews, it is fundamental that you don't start to mix up the candidates and then, have difficulty saying who was who.

4. Always allow the other person to ask you some questions at the end of the interview - a genuinely interested person, will ask you some questions at the end of the interview so is important for you to save the last 10 minutes or so to allow the other person to ask you those questions and you will keep getting crucial information from that section as well.

5. Always, always, always, give feedback - I can't stress this enough, whether is positive or negative feedback, never leave the other person not knowing what the outcome of that interview is. At the end of the meeting, give a deadline for your response and keep it. There is nothing worse than going to an interview and then... nothing. Not yes or no. So, please, always give feedback.

Have a wonderful day and great interviews,

Alexandra Sousa