There is a category of questions recruiters shouldn’t ask applicants. Inadequate or outdated interview questions don’t give you valuable information about the candidate and only waste your time. By avoiding time-wasting questions, you can get to the point faster and narrow your list of applicants down with ease.
Such questions may sound like this:
Interviewers ask this question to get an idea of where the candidate lives concerning the work location. However, it borders on illegal.
To know if commuting may be an issue for the candidate, you can ask this question differently: “Are you comfortable with the work location?”
This question does not give you a clear insight into the applicant’s career wishes or, more importantly, their ability to do the job but puts the candidate in the position where they have to answer that they would like to be with the company for that time.
It would be better to ask: “Where does this position fit along your long-term career ladder?”
Asking this question, you put the candidate on the spot and may back them into a corner. If you ask the candidate a variation of this question, it will demonstrate how well the candidate understands the job requirements.
You should ask, for instance, “How does your previous work experience align with the duties for this position?”
This question will hardly tell you anything about the candidate’s skills. Moreover, this question is so common that many candidates probably have prepared answers to it.
It seems better to ask open-ended questions that allow applicants to display self-awareness about their potential growth. For example, “What professional development would make you a more effective employee?”
Candidates want a new job for countless reasons. Therefore, none of the answers will give you valuable information to help you make a hiring decision.
Instead, it would be more reasonable to ask: “As you understand this job, what is the biggest attraction to it for you?”
As an interviewer, you should already know how candidates would describe themselves.
Open-ended questions are usually better to spark the conversation and provide you with a deeper understanding of the applicant’s work experience and character. For instance, the recruiter may say: “Could you tell me something, not on your resume that aligns with this job?”
People change jobs for different reasons, but they often do it because of a poor manager.
It would help if you didn’t ask the candidate to discuss poor management or even malign their previous employer.
A different open-ended question about the candidate’s prior position would suit better to give you valuable information, for example, “What aspects of your previous position did you find most professionally challenging?”