Summary Video For Employer Interview Questions To Ask Candidates
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You’ll have in your hand what the candidate can do on paper, but preparing job interview questions to ask candidates can help you make those key decisions on suitability.
When interviewing a candidate, you will be looking to find out:
- Whether or not the candidate meets the requirements of the job
- How the candidate reacts under pressure
- How well the candidate would fit in to your team
- How the candidate explains and builds upon their CV
Examine the candidate’s graduate CV, including their education, previous work experience and skills they have listed – as well as enquiring about employment gaps, and questions you have.
Once you know the basics of what they can offer, move onto more investigative job interview questions to ask the candidate to help decide whether the person is right for your role.
Here are the top interview questions for employers in every industry.
What Is Your Current Salary
Your prospective employer may ask you this question, but in many places, they legally should not be asking for your salary information.
“Several states and localities now bar employers from asking this question in an attempt to end pay discrimination, which can happen when employers continuously base a person’s salary on what a previous employer paid them,” said Brie Reynolds, career development manager and coach at FlexJobs.
Even if your prospective employer can legally ask about your current salary, Reynolds recommends turning the question around to ask how much the role typically pays. For example, “I’d be happy to discuss salary and I’m interested to know what you had in mind for the pay range for this role.”
Questions You Should Not Ask In A Job Interview
Ok, now that you have some surefire questions you can ask that will impress hiring manager lets go over the types of questions you should avoid asking. As youll see, these questions reflect poorly on you and paint you as a less than ideal candidate
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What Metrics Would You Use To Measure Success In This Role
Asking a question like this shows that you’re goal-oriented and aren’t afraid to be held accountable for those goals. You don’t shirk accountability. You welcome it — and will work hard to hit the goals you’re responsible for.
How It Helps You
It’s shocking how many people don’t actually know what they want from their employees beyond a vague idea of some work that needs to get done. Asking this question will force a hiring manager to figure it out — and then can communicate it to you, so you can execute on it.
Interviews Aren’t Just About Giving The Right Answersthey’re About Asking The Right Questions
Ask insightful, thorough questions to your potential employer.
The landscape for job seekers today can be difficult. In other words, if you want a job today, the hard work starts when you prepare for the interview. That means not just nailing the interview questions you are asked, but actually knowing which questions to ask in an interview so that you leave a strong impression on hiring managers. After all, youre reviewing them as much as theyre reviewing you. The right questions to ask during an interview are the ones that will not only elicit important information, but will also reflect positively on you as a candidate.
Heres the thing: Rattling off a list of haphazard queries wont get you much attention. You need to come up with good questions to ask in an interview, ones that make the people in the room sit up and take notice. Your questions must demonstrate that you did your homework on the job itself, have a set of values that are shared with the company, and understand where the industry is headed. Bonus: These questions could also help you avoid a bad boss before it’s too late.
Your goal is to make a statement in the form of a question. The statement is designed to:
- Highlight your qualifications.
- Understand the employers challenges.
- Make yourself accountable.
- Advance your candidacy.
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‘is There Anyone Else I Need To Meet With/is There Anyone Else You Would Like Me To Meet With’
Hoover said knowing if they want you to meet with potential coworkers or not will give you insight into how much the company values building team synergy. In addition, if the interviewer says you have four more interviews to go, then you’ve gained a better sense of the hiring timeline as well, she said.
Company Questions To Ask The Interviewer
- What do you like best about working at the company?
- Are there any challenges to working at this company you think I should know about?
- Can you please describe the company culture in more detail?
- What is the dynamic like between the companys board of directorsStaggered BoardA staggered board of directors, also known as a classified board, refers to a board that consists of different classes of directors. In a staggered board of, shareholders, executives, and employees?
- Can you please share some information about the companys financial position and performance
- What type of people typically succeed at this company?
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How To Answer 12 Of The Toughest Interview Questions
The job interview process can be nerve-wracking, especially when you get hit with a curveball question that you don’t know how to answer. Although you can never truly predict what your interviewer will ask you, it does help to be prepared to answer some of the common tricky questions you may encounter.
What Are The Top 5 Questions To Ask
Well they should be different for each candidate depending on the situation, but here are 5 great ones:1. Can you tell me exactly what I would be expected to do if I was hired for this position?2. Can you walk me through a typical day here at Company X?3. Can you tell me what you love the most about working here?4. Is there anything else I can provide you with that would be helpful or questions I can answer?5. What are the next steps in the interview process?
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‘where Do You See Yourself In Five Years’
Becca Brown, the cofounder of the women’s shoe-care company Solemates, interviewed 20 to 30 job candidates a year in her various roles at Goldman Sachs. She previously told Business Insider she wished candidates would have asked her this question.
“I like this question, and yet no one ever asked it because it’s difficult to answer,” she said. “It’s an important question for anyone to be asking him or herself, and so if ever a candidate were to ask this question, it would have stood out.”
She continued: “I think this is a good question for interviewees to ask because as a candidate if you see where the person interviewing you is headed, you can decide if that trajectory is in line with your career objectives. While they don’t have to be completely correlated, it’s helpful for the candidate to have some indication of the interviewer’s direction.”
‘if Hired What Are The Three Most Important Things You’d Like Me To Accomplish In The First Six To 12 Months At The Company’
“Think of every open position as a problem or pain point the company is hoping to solve with the right hire,” Augustine said. “The more you know about the hiring manager’s expectations and metrics for success, the easier it will be for you to tailor the conversation to demonstrate your fit for the role.”
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What Is The Biggest Challenge The Team Has Faced In The Past Year
While the interviewer might be trying to paint a pretty perfect picture of what working on the team might look like, asking this question will help you uncover some of the realities the team has been facing recently. If you end up joining, you’ll inevitably hear about these challenges — and you may have to help solve them, too. This is a question our principal recruiter Katie Donohue says she likes to hear during interviews.
How It Helps You
It really helps to know what challenges you could find yourself or your team up against ahead of time. In some cases, it could affect whether you accept the role. Not only that, but learning about these challenges could give you some great insights into the steps the team has taken to overcome these challenges already.
‘what’s One Of The Most Interesting Projects Or Opportunities That You’ve Worked On’
“I like this question because it gets me thinking about my own experiences, and my response changes depending on what I was or am working on and in theory, should always be changing if I’m challenging myself and advancing,” Brown previously told Business Insider.
Brown said that by asking for a specific example, candidates can get a better picture of what the job entails and how people function in certain roles.
“I always liked getting this question because it would make me reflect on what experiences I was excited about or proud of at the time, and it would make me want to create more of these types of opportunities and experiences,” she said.
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Do I Need To Ask My Interviewer Questions
Its highly recommended to ask your interviewer relevant, thoughtful questions. Doing so will give you a better understanding of whether the position is the right fit for you. It also shows the interviewer that you have a genuine interest in the position. If the time for you to ask questions comes and you let the interviewer know that you dont have any, it may come across as a sign that you did not prepare or that youre not taking the position seriously.
Consider preparing a list of 5-10 questions to ask ahead of time. Having a written list of pre-prepared questions will help in the instance that you get nervous and dont remember what you wanted to ask, or questions dont arise organically during the interview. With the right questions, youll be able to illustrate your knowledge of the company and industry, along with your drive to excel in the new position.
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Questions to ask in an interview:
Can you elaborate on the day-to-day responsibilities this job entails?
What are the characteristics of someone who would succeed in this role?
What’s the most important thing I could do within the first 90 days?
What are some of the challenges people in this role encounter?
How would my performance be measured?
What does the career path for someone in this role look like?
What other functions or departments does this team work with most often?
What does your job look like day-to-day?
What do you like best about working here?
What Do You Like Most About Working Here
This question can be a breath of fresh air to HR reps who primarily answer questions about benefits . Asking an HR employee what they like about the company tells them you care about the company’s culture and that you care about the opinion of someone whom you might not work with directly.
In other words, talking to people like people is always a good idea.
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What Are The Best Questions To Ask In An Interview
Asking good questions in an interview is the perfect way to demonstrate your interest in a position. Your request for more information will show commitment, evidence of company research and confidence in your workplace skills. This article outlines the best questions to ask in an interview.
Before a job interview draws to a close, one of the final questions you will be asked is if you have any questions for the panel. As well as providing an opportunity for you to clarify any information from the job description and interview, this question allows you to build rapport with the interviewers and remind them why you are the best candidate for the job.
Having a list of pre-written questions is essential, as it shows an interviewer that you are both organised and committed. We recommend preparing at least five questions, as its likely that the panel will answer some of these earlier on in the interview process.
Questions That Impress The Employer
The goal of the job interview is to create a strong impression that leads to a job offer.
Even though the asking of questions from a candidate can improve the impression created throughout the recruitment process by highlighting inside knowledge that shows how the candidate is interested in the role.
This is achieved by sharing researched guised as a question. Researched based questions take more preparation, but increase the value an employer associates with the candidates.
The idea is to state the research and ask a question based on the stated research. The research can include:
- Contracts/tenders the employer is bidding on
- Sector-related technology
- Changes to production/vision/values the employer is making
- New markets the business is moving into
- Risk from competitors, globalization, politics, etc
Below is three different ways to phrase the question to an employer:
- While researching the company, I saw that you are looking to , how will this effect the day-to-day activities?
- I know that the sector/company is facing big changes because of , how do you plan to approach this challenge?
- I was interested to hear about the new direction the company is heading in, what do you think will be the biggest challenges and biggest rewards?
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What Are The Performance Expectations For This Position Will That Expectation Change The Longer I Am Doing The Job
This is a two part questionbut knowledge is power and the more you have, the better off you are! You want to make sure you and your employer establish early on what they expect from you performance wise and not just for the immediate future. If this is a job you plan on sticking with for a period of time, make sure early on that you know what they want you to do and if that will change over time.
Where Do You See Yourself In 5 Years
The recruiter is only interested in knowing how long you plan to stay with the company and how satisfied you are with the current position in which you are hired.
14. What was the toughest decision youve had to make?
Difficult is for the weak. I always calculate my decisions by performing a cost-benefit analysis of the available options.
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Smart Questions To Ask Your Interviewer
At some point during your job interview, the interviewer is going to ask Do you have any questions for me? And you better have some.
Not asking anything is an immediate sign that youre not particularly interested in the role or company, and will usually destroy any chance you had of landing the position. But you have to ask the right questions. Dont make it about you and what you can get out of the role. Make it about learning more about the position and organization, and about learning how you can fit and contribute. Nervous and unsure what to do? Not to worry. Here are 11 smart questions to ask your interviewer.
First, do not ask:
- How much vacation time do I get?
- How much does it pay?
- What is it that this company does anyway?
- Can I nap on the job?
- How much notice do you need if I want to quit?
You get the idea.
So, what should you ask instead? Start with:
What market/audience are you trying to reach?
This is the best question you can ask because every company has one or more target nuts they cant quite crack. If you can offer help here, youre probably as good as in.
What can you tell me about the company culture?
This shows that you are interested in the work environment and want to know how you would fit in. It will also give you a good sense of whether or not youll actually enjoy working at the company.
How is success evaluated in this role?
Who would I be working with?
What are some of the challenges someone in this position might face?
What are the next steps?
