3 Tips to Crafting Great Interview Questions

Expedition HR does not recruit/headhunt for our clients. What we do is help our clients gain the important knowledge to queue them up to make the best hires. A key piece we help with is crafting effective (and legal!) interview questions. Having buttoned up interview questions ensures the interview process is efficient and helps to easily identify the best candidate for the role!

In this blog post, I will share 3 tips to creating great interview questions.

1. Direct Link to Essential Duties: You want your interview questions to be directly related to the essential duties of the role. What do I mean when I refer to “essential duties?” Essential duties of a role are outlined on the job description and are fundamental to the role. These are the duties which the incumbent will spend 90% of their time and are markers on which you will base their performance. For example, if submitting payroll bi-weekly is an essential duty of the role, a question you could ask is – Tell me about your experience processing payroll at a past employer.

2. Consistency! When interviewing for one role, remember to ask the same core questions to all candidates. Some clarifying questions are fine, but keep the core questions consistent. Why? If the unselected candidate wants to know why they were not hired, you may struggle with the basis for the reason because you were inconsistent with the questions you asked.

3. Avoid Y/N Responses: When creating interview questions, avoid questions which result in Yes/No answers. Do this by leaning towards “Tell me about a time…” or “Please share an experience when you…” type of questions instead of simply asking - “Do you have payroll experience?” You will receive more robust answers and glean better insights about the person’s qualifications for the role.

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