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124 Boost Your Hiring IQ

• What is your strength? What is your weakness?

• What is your preference—working alone or working with a team?
• Would you rather lead a team or be a member of a team?
This type of questioning may reveal a great deal about candidates and
their preferences as well as their confidence level.

Motivational Questions
Motivational questions allow you to determine if a candidate will be sat-
isfied in the position. One way to find out about someone’s satisfaction
level is to ask about when he or she was most satisfied or dissatisfied in
previous jobs. When you find out when the candidate was most satis-
fied, then you can probe further to find out what created the satisfaction
in that job. For example, you can ask, “What motivated you the most at
your previous job? Was it the people? The culture? The job responsibil-
ities? The paycheck?”
Listen to the answers to determine if your position and company cul-
ture will be a good fit for the candidates given their previous experi-
ences. If they were dissatisfied at a job that is very similar to your job,
what makes you think that they won’t be dissatisfied at your company,
doing this job? This should be considered a red flag and will need fur-
ther investigation.

Illegal Questions
It’s important to know what questions you cannot ask because of legal re-
strictions.There are actually questions that are illegal and improper to ask.
A good rule of thumb to be on the safe side is to ask only job-related ques-
tions. If the question strays from the specifics of the job, you begin to get
into dangerous waters.
Stay away from any topic that focuses on personal information. You
should not ask about age, marital status, number of children, religion,
politics, or place of origin. If a candidate volunteers the information, be
sure to note that in your record of the interview.
All candidates should receive fair and equal treatment, whatever your
procedure. An example of perceived discrimination was when a woman
over the age of 50 claimed age discrimination because she was not given
an application to fill out the way the other candidates were. Make sure
that if candidates are required to fill out an application, each person is
given an application. This is a necessary step to prevent someone from
claiming unfair treatment.