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Hi,
I have been looking through the forums and replaying the pod casts on interviewing for questions to help with interviewing as I’m always keen to update my skills.

I thought I’d share my standard questions (I have this in word format in the event anyone wants it). I take this into every meeting with an additional list of technical questions (developed specific to the position I’m recruiting for).

My personal favourite questions are in the creativity section, there is nothing like asking a seriously geeky person to [pretend I’m your grandfather and] "Explain the Internet to your grandparent"

Feel free to comment I’m always interested in what other people think.

Thanks
Stephen

Starters:
Briefly, would you summarize your work history & education for me?
What do you know about our organization?
What made you apply for this position?
What was the last book you read?
->What did you get from it?
Why should we hire you? What set’s you apart from the next person
Tell me about a time when you did XXXXX, how did you do it and what was the results
What important trends do you see in our industry?

Self Assessment:
Can you describe for me a difficult obstacle you have had to overcome? How did you handle it? How do you feel this experience affected your personality or ability?
What things frustrate you the most? How do you usually cope with them?
What do you consider to be your greatest achievements to date? Why?

Creativity:
What kind of problems have people recently called on you to solve? Tell me what you have devised.
Of your creative accomplishments big or small, at work or home, what gave you the most satisfaction?
In your work experience, what have you done that you consider truly creative?
Explain the Internet to your grandparents
What is your favourite web site? Why? Now improve it.

Flexibility:
What has been the highest pressure situation you have been under in recent years? How did you cope with it?

Work History:
Why are you leaving your present job? (Or, why did you leave your last job?)
What special aspects of your work experience have prepared you for this job?
How much supervision have you typically received in your previous job?
Describe for me one or two of the biggest disappointments in your work history?

Career Goals:
What is your long-term employment or career objective?
What might make you leave this job?
How does this job fit in with your overall career goals?
What would you most like to accomplish if you had this job?

drinkcoffee's picture

As a hiring manager, this is pure gold to me. I have a (smaller) set of standard questions, but yours are better. Thanks for sharing this valuable information!

PierG's picture

I do like the: 'What kind of problems have people recently called on you to solve?'. I love people that reminds these king of challenges. For me it means they care, they have passion!
And, I sometimes ask for a 'challenge' .. the 'impossibile question' just to see how they behave in a completely unknown scenario.

PierG

smorison's picture

one question i throw in all the time which isn't on this list is:

"Steve Jobs calls you, and says [insert name], you've owned an ipod now for a while, our sales are dropping and we're turning to you to help us make it better, how can we?"

this question really gets people off guard, and shows you how they really think / act under pressure.

bflynn's picture

[quote="smorison"]one question i throw in all the time which isn't on this list is:

"Steve Jobs calls you, and says [insert name], you've owned an ipod now for a while, our sales are dropping and we're turning to you to help us make it better, how can we?"

this question really gets people off guard, and shows you how they really think / act under pressure.[/quote]

This question bugs me for some reason, but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it. I think part of the reason is that there are so many answers to it (hardware technical, software technical, qa, marketing, product cycle, pricing and channel are just a few.) Neither of us are experts on the iPod market, unless you're talking about hiring for a job at Apple, in which case, please email me.

As a candidate, I would like to pick the one that I felt was most relevant to your position, but I'd be stuck compromising between your position and the iPod scenario. If I were to go down a route different that what you believe, I'd have an inferior answer. But the reason for that has nothing to do with my ability. There is an element of randomness to this question that I think could be improved upon.

As a general business knowledge question, I like it. You'll get a great deal of information about the candidate's thought process and knowledge. If you prefaced the question by excluding your company and the current position and use the question to probe business education, I'd really like the question.

Brian

smorison's picture

[quote="bflynn"]
This question bugs me for some reason, but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it. I think part of the reason is that there are so many answers to it (hardware technical, software technical, qa, marketing, product cycle, pricing and channel are just a few.) Neither of us are experts on the iPod market, unless you're talking about hiring for a job at Apple, in which case, please email me.
[/quote]

Brian,
thanks for your input, i normally preface the question with: do you own an ipod? i then ask the question, the candidate is made aware that there is no wrong answer.

Over the last 2 years i've been asking this question the answers have varied from:

* make it scratch resistant
* longer battery life
* play videos as well (this was said just before the newer ipods came out)
to
* fix all the firmware issues
to
* deal with your marketing and advertising in a more targeted way

In my note taking the answer isn't really the important bit, i'm looking for their creativity and the way they step through being thrown a curve ball. its like the "describe the internet to your grandfather" one.

anyway i don't want to sound defensive, so i'm going to stop now :)

thanks