Renowned American author and organizational expert Jim Collins once wrote, “People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”
To find the right people, companies need a highly effective recruiting approach. One of the most important parts of a strong recruitment function is a systematic and impactful interview process that allows you to identify those people who would be best suited for the role you’re looking to fill. In these interviews, the quality of your questions is going to determine how much information you can procure and how well you can assess someone’s ultimate fit for your organization.
At The Renaissance Network (TRN), we’ve been working in talent acquisition since 1996, and we’ve had the opportunity to experience a wide range of different interview questions; we see how much value thoughtfully developed questions can provide. If you don’t have a list of effective interview questions at your disposal, you can easily make hiring decisions based on whether you “like” a person rather than on their actual potential to succeed in the role and organizational culture. The risk: you’ll end up building an organization of employees based on affinity, rather than one built up with those who are best for the job.
Below you will find 23 questions we’ve found to be incredibly effective; these suggestions can help you improve your interview process, no matter what state it is currently in. Of note: the questions shared in this article are interview questions that are often missed and can ensure the ultimate fit and success of a new hire in your organization. We also recommend experience-based questions to confirm necessary qualifications to help you build your business, and that approach is covered separately here.
23 Must-Ask Interview Questions
1. What is making you interested in this particular role?
What you’re looking for here is that the candidate gives a specific answer that shows they have given this role some thought and have done some research. If they provide a generic answer that doesn’t quite apply, then you know that they aren’t that invested in the role itself.
2. What is the reason that you’re looking for a new position?
Understanding the intentions of your candidate is an important factor in identifying whether they are right for the role. Spend time assessing the reason or pain they were trying to escape, and it will help you make better decisions for this specific role.
3. What are the top three things you look for in a new position?
This helps to unpack someone’s priorities and gives you a window into what really matters to them. If you can’t resonate with what they’re looking for, then you know that you’ve got the wrong person, and they’re not going to align with your working culture.
4. What are your top three strengths?
Strengths are what you’re going to look to build on, so identifying them early will help you understand if you can leverage the skills of this person to advance your mission. Ideally, these should match the specific role that you’re looking for, so as to maximize that person’s effectiveness in the position.
5. What are your top three weaknesses?
This builds off of the strengths question; you want to identify someone’s major weaknesses so that you can target the professional or behavioral gap areas where you’ll need to offer additional support. This question also will give you a window into the interviewee’s self-awareness, which is crucial for long-term success.
6. If you were to take this position, what is something that I’d learn three months down the road that would surprise me?
This question asks the candidate to think ahead to potential outcomes later on down the line. Everyone puts their best face on during an interview, but you also want to understand what this person is going to be like in the months and years to come. As such, this can open up an opportunity to explore that future so you can get a sense of the long-term fit.
7. What should I know about you that is not on your resume?
Resumes are naturally constrained, and so there is a lot of qualitative information that you just can’t pick up from the document. Giving the candidate a chance to share this will help you form a more holistic image of who that prospect is, which helps to add color and character to the 2D version you see on the resume itself.
8. Tell me about a time you went above and beyond at work?
Leaving this question open-ended creates the space for a candidate to tell a story about when they went beyond the call of duty in service of a larger mission. Listen carefully to not just the content but also the way they tell the story, and you’ll get a lot of information about the kind of person that they are and what they might bring to your organization.
9. What motivates you?
Each individual can be motivated by different factors, and a key component to get the most out of your people is to understand what makes your team tick. A candidate’s answer will provide insight into the levers that you have to encourage and inspire them – which should align with the company values if they are to be successful in the long term.
10. Tell me about a time when you received constructive feedback? What was it? And what did you do to change what you were doing?
One’s ability to receive feedback and act on it is something that will determine how well you can train and develop someone in your organization. This question helps to identify how they respond to such feedback so you have a sense of what sort of growth you can expect from the employee.
11. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Asking for a future vision will help you evaluate the long-term motivations of your candidate and ensure that you are well aware of their personal goals and objectives. If you can’t provide this as an organization, you would likely see high attrition if you hired someone whose goals didn’t align with what you can offer.
12. What are you passionate about?
We all have passions, and they often define who we are as a person. By identifying these in the interview process, you can get a full picture of who the person is and what truly matters to them. All of which helps you make better hiring decisions overall.
13. How would you describe your own work style?
Your organization will already have a specific culture and working environment that a new prospect will need to fit into. By hearing about their desired work style, you can assess the cultural fit and avoid any unnecessary clashes that might get in the way of their performance.
14. Describe a time when you exceeded expectations?
This provides the interviewee with a chance to talk about a highlight of their career and brag a little about a moment of triumph. Listening carefully to the story can unlock new insights into their value to your organization and what they can bring to the table that other team members might not be able to.
15. Describe a time when you didn’t meet expectations? What happened? And Why?
This is the inverse of the question above, giving the candidate an opportunity to reflect on a failure with perfect hindsight. You’re looking for humility, self-awareness, and a willingness to grow and improve. This story will help you understand how much of those qualities are present.
16. Tell me about a time when you made a major mistake?
This is another direct question that gets at the heart of a past failure. Ideally, you’re looking to understand how they sought to rectify it and what it taught them. The sorts of people you’re looking to hire are the ones who aren’t afraid of making mistakes but rather are capable of learning from them and carrying that wisdom forward.
17. Describe a time when you missed a deadline? Why? What happened? How did you rectify it?
Deadlines are part and parcel of every organization, and hearing about one that got away speaks to the candidate’s reliability and efficiency in the workplace. Both of these are incredibly important, and so you should work to get a sense of them during the interview process.
18. Do you have any questions?
Recruitment is a two-way process, and as much as you want to ensure that they’re a good fit for your company, talented people will also want to ensure that your company is a good fit for them. By giving them the opportunity to ask questions – you allow them the chance to dig into any remaining objections or confusions so that they can make the right decision.
19. What skills and strengths can you bring to this position?
This question gets at the heart of the unique value proposition that this prospect might bring to the role. This is the bread and butter of why you’re hiring, and you should make sure that the skills and strengths on offer are what you’re looking for.
20. Can you tell me about your current job?
Give me a day in the life of your current position? A resume can only tell you so much about past experience. This question delves deeper into this, giving you a better sense of what the candidate has been doing on a day-to-day basis. It will also cover work habits, initiative, and even attitude towards work itself.
21. Can you tell me about a time when you had a disagreement with a boss or colleague and how you handled the situation?
Healthy debate and disagreement are crucial in any organization, so you want to assess a candidate’s preferred means of conflict resolution before you hire them. This matters significantly for team cohesion as well as personal development within the organization.
22. How would your boss describe you?
Getting an external perspective on a candidate can give you a different lens through which to understand them as a person. This question aims to get at that indirectly, adding more color to the profile that you’re building of that person.
23. What really turns you off?
Understanding the sorts of things that anger a candidate can help you identify whether they will fit in culturally or whether they might be better suited somewhere else. Being proactive about this is worth its weight in gold – especially in the wider context of your team dynamics.
Summary
So, there you have it! 23 great interview questions that are sure to level up your interviewing process. We’ve pulled these directly from our work here at The Renaissance Network, and we know that they’ll bring you lots of value if you implement them in a systematic fashion.
If you’d like to work with us to supercharge your recruiting and interviewing, be sure to get in touch today and let’s explore how we could help you take your Education and EdTech teams to the next level.
