Questions to Ask a Potential Employee in an Interview

Tap to Read ➤ Rita Putatunda

The kind of questions an employer asks potential employees in an interview helps identify not only their job abilities, but also their skills, their personality, and to some extent, their worth for the particular job. Here's a list of such questions that will help you obtain this crucial information.

Hiring the right kind of people is key to the continuing success and growth of your company, whether it is big or small. Hence, you need to interview potential employees wisely in order to identify their weaknesses and strengths, determine their job skills, and get a feel of their ability to cooperate and work in a team.

However, that does not have to mean that you need to subject yourself and the candidate to boring questions like - "How do you work in a team?" You can use cleverly worded questions that will not only elicit the answers you need but also provide a lot of background information, which often form an important basis for hiring people.

Check out the following questions, and you will find that answering them divulges more about the candidate than they might want to reveal about themselves.

Interesting Interview Questions and What they Reveal about Candidates

This will tell you whether the applicant has done his/her homework or not, while also giving you an insight about his/her approach to the job.

This is a probing question which is meant to find out how highly motivated the applicant is.

The answer to this will display the candidate's attitude to customer service.

This will tell you about the candidate's problem-solving abilities, of course. But additionally, the response will give you a peek into his/her character. Most job interviewees are loath to admit ignorance about anything to do with work.

This will not only tell you about the candidate's conflict management skills, but also give you an inkling about his/her strength of character. It takes courage to admit having a conflict in the workplace.

Yes, this is a tricky one, the response of which should be interesting. Basically, it will tell you how the candidate deals with priority management.

This is a common scenario that happens in most offices. It will tell you about the candidate's ability to deal with office gossip and politics.

Again a probing question to not only elicit job capabilities, but to see how the candidate responds. Does he/she try to squirm out of it, or does he/she take it head on?

Again, taking this head on in a reasoned way is indicative of a person who has courage and a certain amount of self-esteem.

Yet another question, the response to which indicates quick thinking. It is not easy for most of us to talk about ourselves in superlative terms. Any candidate who can narrate an anecdote displaying his/her accomplishments will tell you that he/she will be mentally nimble when required.

The key to conducting a successful interview is to essentially ask such questions which will help you know your candidate as a person, and whether he/she is fit to be a part of your organization.

The questions you ask in the interview should allow you to gather information about your candidates principles as well, so that you can judge if he/she will be able to follow the company's ideals, motto and policies. As long as you ask questions that give you these answers without demeaning the candidate, you are good to go!