Page 137 - Boost Your Hiring

The Surefire Way to Boost Your Score 123

• What was the reason that you left (are you leaving) your job?

• When were you most satisfied in your job?
• What can you do for us that other candidates can’t?
• What salary are you seeking?

Position Questions—Specific Positions
Moving beyond the basic, introductory questions to the more specific
position questions is necessary to find out if the person has the skills to
succeed in the position (unless, of course, it is an entry-level position).
You can use the job description to formulate these specific questions. If,
for instance, the position is a sales job, you might ask one of the follow-
ing questions:
• What was the most difficult product you’ve had to sell?
• Give me an example of you successfully selling this product to a
customer.
Of, if you are hiring for an administrative position, you might ask
• Have you worked with people who gave you assignments without
giving complete instructions?
• Could you give me a recent example of how you handled that situ-
ation?

An example of a question you could ask someone interviewing for a
supervisory or management position might be “Tell me about the last
time you were responsible for organizing a project and supervising the
work of others.”
You can see that the above questions probe for specific information
about behavior in past situations.These can be the source of valuable in-
formation.

Self-Evaluation/Preference Questions
Self-evaluation questions can be very telling because most candidates
haven’t prepared for them. These are questions in which the candidates
rate themselves or describe how they think others see them.
Good examples of self-evaluation and preference questions are
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself in this field?
• If I were to ask your coworkers to describe you to me, what would
they tell me?