Making a positive impression is priority number one, whether you’re conducting an interview or sitting comfy in the hiring manager’s chair.
Recruiter.com’s Michael Moffa offers a guide to reviewing your questions before preparing for an interview, keeping these questions in mind:
- Is my question going to sound clichéd, stale or formulaic, rather than core?
- Am I asking a question or asking it in a way that will demonstrate competitiveness or collegiality?
- Am I going to sound like I want, really want, important information, or more like I want to showboat? (To put this differently, will my question suggest I am seeking truth, or triumph?)
- Is the question going to suggest that I am ignorant or stupid, rather than eager?
- Will my question sound like informed acknowledgement, or like sucking up?
- Will I sound nosy, aggressive and invasive, rather than interested?
- Will the question suggest I am asking in order to express, explore, or elicit something, and is my action intention clear?
- Is the question – or is it likely to be seen as – a trap or a switch-and-bait set-up for something else?
- Will be question be seen as an evasion?
- Does the question convey a sense of entitlement or presumption in its content, timing or tone?
Regardless of your role in the interview, you don’t want to put the other person off – or to sleep – so, as always, keep at the forefront of your mind either what you’re looking for in a recruit or what the company wants to see in a candidate. Then cut the fluff and ask your questions accordingly.
Read deeper into Moffa’s questions here.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
