6.5 Interview Questions
Once the qualifications to be covered in the interview have been determined from the job description, the next step is to develop questions that assess these qualifications.
Employers ask interview questions to confirm three things:
- If you have the abilities and skills to do the job.
- If you fit well with the team and the organization and
- If you have enthusiasm and a good work ethic.
Types of Interview Questions
There are two types of structured interview questions: Situational and behavioural.
Situational Questions
These questions present applicants with a hypothetical situation relevant to the position, typical of what is likely encountered on the job. Applicants are asked to describe how he or she might deal with the situation.
Situational questions have been found to be highly valid and applicable to a variety of jobs and qualifications. One advantage of situational questions is that applicants respond to a hypothetical situation rather than describing experiences from their past, thus not placing anyone at a disadvantage. Such questions help gain insight into the candidate’s problem-solving skills, as well as determine how well candidates can handle a problem they did not prepare for.
For situational interview questions to be most effective, examples of job-specific events and actual behaviours should be collected from subject matter experts such as supervisors or job incumbents. Research has found that most interviewees tend to prefer situational questions over behavioural questions because they are less memory-dependent and more relevant to the job .
Examples of Situational Questions to Assess Teamwork
“Suppose you had an idea for a change in procedure to enhance work quality, but some members of your work team were against any type of change. What would you do in this situation?”
“Consider a situation where you and a co-worker are working on a project together. You both agreed on how the work was to be divided up. However, your co-worker fails to do their share of the work. What would you do?”
Behavioural Questions
Behavioural questions ask applicants to describe a previous work or life event that is relevant to the position. They are usually about a time when they had to demonstrate a particular qualification that is important for the job. The candidate is asked to recall a specific experience and how they handled it. These questions often begin with ‘tell me about a time when you -”. These questions are suitable for most types of positions and are highly valid in predicting job performance. As with situational questions, behavioural questions are developed using on-the-job events collected from subject matter experts.
Examples of Behavioural Questions to Assess Teamwork
“What was the biggest difference of opinion you ever had with a co-worker?”
“Can you give me an example of a time when you worked as part of a team to achieve a common goal?”
Job Knowledge Questions.
These questions typically assess the technical or professional knowledge required to perform the duties of the position. Applicants are asked to demonstrate their knowledge in specific areas, such as basic accounting principles, computer programming, financial management, etc.
Assessing job knowledge in an interview is particularly useful when the position for which you are hiring requires the verbalization of technical information and work procedures. For example, in advisory or consulting jobs, most of the requests for service are verbal.
Assessing job knowledge in the interview would not be recommended if there are a large number of job knowledge questions, especially if the answers are fairly short and routine. In such cases, a written test would be more efficient and usually less expensive to administer and score. It would also not be appropriate in situations where the questions deal with complex behaviours such as diagnosing defects, operating equipment or manipulating data or information. In these situations, job simulations or written knowledge tests are usually more appropriate.
When developing job knowledge questions, the challenge is in deciding how much knowledge one should be expected to have versus what can be learned later on in the job. Such questions should assess knowledge of information that is most essential or important to the performance of the job.
Examples of Job Knowledge Questions
“What steps would you take to develop and implement an employee engagement program in our organization?”
“Can you describe the key elements of a successful employee training program?”
Job Simulations
In simulations, applicants are asked to perform a task they would be required to do on the job. Although simulations have not traditionally been considered to be interview questions, they are often used by managers for this purpose. For example, an applicant could be provided with a budget sheet and asked questions related to the work required to do the job.
However, some caution is warranted with this type of interview question as the artificiality of this type of exercise may make some applicants uncomfortable, i.e. role-playing or simulated scenarios.
Example of Job Simulations
“HR technicians are required to administer written exams. This includes reading exam instructions to the applicants. Please read these exam instructions to us as if you were reading them to a large group of applicants.”
“Can you describe the key elements of a successful employee training program?”
General or Ice-breaker Questions
Interviews can be awkward, particularly at the beginning when tension is high. Icebreaker questions allow the interviewee to become more comfortable, therefore feeling freer to creatively and effectively express themselves during the interview process. The interviewer also gets a better sense of who the applicant is and what type of employee they may be on the job.
Examples of Ice-breaker Questions
“What three words describe you best?”
“What is the hardest class you ever took?”
“An Overview of Interviews” from Career and Workforce Readiness by Trent University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.—Modifications: Used second paragraph; Used section Behavioural questions, edited, added additional examples;
“20. Employment Interview” from Human Resources Management – Canadian Edition by Stéphane Brutus and Nora Baronian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.—Modifications: Used section Ice-breaker, edits, added examples;
Structured Interviewing: How to design and conduct structured interviews for an appointment process The Assessment Oversight and the Personnel Psychology Centre, by the Government of Canada, used under the Crown Copyright – NonCommercial Reproduction Licence (Canada). This reproduction is not endorsed by the Government of Canada.—Modifications: Used Types of interview questions, edited; Changed Job Knowledge examples, added Job simulation questions.
