Ask good questions (and listen).

Asking good questions can be hard, so think about this when preparing your interview.

This mainly applies to the section where you check work, drive and fit (also the three things you will be rating when making a decision).

We recommend you come up with your own set and testing them out.

What questions 'work' and which one don't? Share this with your hiring team!

It's not per se a bad idea to ask the same kind of question to a person several times by several people.

Use the art of listening and follow up questions. Short questions like:

• Can you elaborate on that? Why?
• Can you give an example?
• What effect did that have?
• How would you approach that situation now?
• What other options did you have?
• What happened? How? Can you explain?

Types of questions

There are different types of questions. Experiment with different types of questioning.

The Eight Types of Interview Questions

Research shows that case, behavioral and competency questions scored best on validity, so try to focus on those types of questions.

Case:

Share a real [Company Name]-life problem with a candidate and aks how someone would solve or approach it.

Behavioral:

Ask about former behavior to predict future behavior. For example: What is your biggest mistake over the past year? What happened and how did you deal with it?

Competency:

Ask a question which reveals expertise, knowledge or skills, for example for a support person: Tell me about a situation where a customer got really angry, what did you do?

Overall questions

• What are you most proud of in life?
• What is the last book you read?
• What do you like to spend your time on aside from work?
• How do you measure success?
• Can you give an example of a situation where you used data to ground a decision?

Work question

(these of course differ per role)

Overall work questions:

• What was your biggest achievement at your former job?
• What kind of things do you really dislike to do? Why?
• What is your biggest mistake over the past year? What happened and how did you deal with it?
• You get to organise an event, which two/three people in your field of expertise would you invite to give a talk?
• What are your go-to platforms for staying up to date?
• What do you think your first 30 days would look like in this role?

Now try tailoring some questions to the profile you're looking for.

For example for PM's:

• What do you think our [Company Name]’s 3 most important metrics are?
• If you could make one change to [Company Name]’s new iOS app, what would you change?
• What do you think of the current proposition?
• Do you communicate differently with designers than you do with engineers? What’s the difference?
• Can you give an example of a time where you had a hard time working with your team and how you fixed that?

Drive questions

(these apply to all roles)

• What makes you get up out of bed every morning? What makes you tick?
• If you would have your own company, what would it do/make/create?
• What kind of topics are you really passionate about? Sport, economics...
• If you had no financial incentive (because you won the lottery) to work, how would you spend your days?
• What do you do to get better? What do you need from us to improve?
• What things are you trying to improve in?
• Tell me about your biggest bold bet, how did it play out?
• Why are you quitting your current job?