Submitted by ManuJO on
in
Forums
Dear Manager/Career Tools community,
I just recently came across the Effective Interviewing podcasts and they are absolutely amazing - very inspiring, they give you the confidence you need to do good!
So, I would like to give my little contribute in one particular thing. On "How to ask questions" . Mark and Mike mention 8 rules. I would like to propose a 9th one: "Be prepared to answer your own questions". It happened several times to me getting to the questions part, asking my 3 smart and prepared questions, and the recruited comes back and says: "I will answer you, but first, what do you thing about that particular issue?" or "That's a nice question; I would like you to answer it".
I'm sure that if we were able to put some thought in the questions, we can answer them as well. Still, what is the recruiter expecting in this case?
Mark and Mike, any thoughts on this?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Greetings from Portugal,
Manuel
Smile politely, then throw them out the window
Having a candidate turn a question around, especially in the manner you described, just *reeks* of all the really, really bad advice that you see from people who claim to be "interviewing experts" but have likely never hired (or even *been* hired, in some cases) in their lives. It completely disregards the entire purpose of the interview from the interviewer's perspective (to ensure this is the right person for the job) and also the inherent power dynamic (the candidate has none).
Quite frankly, if someone said to me, "That's a nice question; I'd like you to answer it", I'm pretty sure my response would be something along the lines of "Yeah, and I want a pony. I think I've got all I need for now, thanks for your time, the lifts are that way."
I can *almost* imagine it being appropriate for a candidate to re-ask a (variant of a) question that was asked earlier when asked "Do you have any questions for me?", with the intention of getting the interviewer's perspective on the situation, but I think it would still weird me out. During the initial question itself they could have engaged me in conversation on the issue; re-asking it at the end seems very clumsy.
Prepare to state questions differently, maybe...
Hi Manuel...and welcome to the forums.
If I understand your question correctly you are proposing, as the interviewer, to prepare yourself for the candidate that "cleverly" declines to answer by suggesting you answer your own question?
Hmmm. To me, it is reasonable to prepare for a very brief clarifying dialog about terminology or being able to state the question differently. I am willing to clarify and state a question differently when interviewing. However, any candidate that intentionally declines to answer or continues attempts at reflecting the interviewers question is failing to provide the information you need to evaluate their fit for the role.
The guidance from MT is when you have any doubts about a candidate the default answer is "no." I in mattpalmer's camp on this point...reflecting questions back to the interviewer in the manner you describe is bad advice.
If the candidate is
If the candidate is defecting your questions and trying to get you to give up the "correct" answer before they respond, that's very useful information. As Matt stated, it's such good information, it gives me enough to know right then and there that this candidate can be screened OUT of my process. I may choose be a bit more diplomatic in my response - but the outcome would be the same.
On the other hand, if the candidate answers the question first (and thoroughly, honestly, and well), and then conversationally inquires about my own style or the organization's culture, I'm happy to reply briefly... but only if the interview is going well, and I'm careful to quickly return the focus back to THEM and their skills.
By the end of the entire screening process, I do believe that the top candidate should be able to evaluate whether it's a fit for THEM as well...so as long as there is not yet a reason to screen the candidate out, I'll be as open as I can be. The behavior you described in your post, though, is a reason to screen them out.
Dear all, Thanks for your
Dear all,
Thanks for your input on this! What you guys say makes perfect sense.
However, I am afraid I did not express myself clearly. I meant when the recruiter asks the interviewee, at the end of the interview, "Do you have any questions for me?". In the Interviewing Series of MT there is a whole podcast on this and how to prepare good questions to ask the recruiter. So my question/comment is: as a interviewee, how can you be a more efficient candidate when the recruiter throws back your prepared questions at you?
Still not a good move
While the situation is reversed from what I originally thought it was, the outcome is still much the same. If I'm asking a question as a candidate, it's because I want to know the answer to make a more informed decision as to whether I want to work there. The interviewer turning the question around is just as much of a dumb move as the interviewee doing it. If I were the candidate, I'd take it as a sign that the interviewer doesn't know how to interview, and the company doesn't care enough about the quality of their new hires to have properly trained interviewers. Both of those are huge red flags for me, and I'd have serious second thoughts about the quality of my colleagues in such an environment.
In reality, though, I'm having a little bit of trouble coming up with many questions where the interviewer *could* turn it around. I suppose they could with "What would you see me doing in the first 90 days?" and "What separates a good performance from a great performance?", but they're not exactly hard questions to answer from the candidate's side. Can you give some examples of the sort of questions you'd expect the interviewer to turn around on you? Perhaps we can give some better advice if we know the sort of questions you're asking.
Hi Matt, The situation I
Hi Matt,
The situation I was faced with was the following: I was interviewing for a Job in Middle East and asked the interviewer, from her experience, how would the recent developments in the region (Syria's war, Turkey's chaos etc) affect the company and my role in particular. And she turned it to me asking what were my thoughts on that. I actually don't think that in this case this is a red flag; she looked sincerely interested in my opinion before giving hers. Still, I was not prepared to answer this, as I have no expertise in the region. If you were in my case, what would you have done/replied in order to look good?
Have some kind of answer, in
Have some kind of answer, in broad general terms.
Something along the lines are: "While I obviously don't have detailed information, I think it could affect us in several ways. First, it could cause disruptions in the supply chain ... Next, there may be challenges with energy prices and stability ...
"While I don't yet have the answers, I'd like the job with Company X to find them."