Interviewing

30 great interview questions to identify candidates’ soft skills

05/30/2012

One of the best ways to tell if applicants have the skills to perform specific tasks is to directly ask how they’ve used those skills in the past. These sample questions can help hiring managers spot 10 important “soft” skills:

Interviewing candidates: 30 great questions to ask (and 15 to avoid)

05/02/2012

The best interview questions focus on what applicants know how to do and how they do it. Here are 30 sample questions that probe into a variety of skills.

Identifying applicant skills: 50 great interview questions

04/27/2012

In addition to giving job-specific tests, the best way to tell if applicants carry the skills to perform specific tasks is to ask very direct questions about how they’ve used each skill in the past. Here are some sample questions hiring managers can use to spot whether these 10 important “soft” skills are present:

Library of Skill-Based Interview Questions

04/12/2012

In addition to giving job-specific tests, the best way to tell if applicants carry the skills to perform specific tasks is to ask very direct questions about how they’ve used each skill in the past. Here are nearly 200 sample interview questions that hiring managers can use to spot the presence of important “soft” skills …

Beat ‘talent paradox’ to hire the employees you need

03/29/2012

Hiring should be easy these days! Unemployment remains high and struggling companies have had to let great people go. Supply should exceed demand. So why is it so hard to hire the employees you need? It’s the “talent paradox”—despite lots of candidates, employers still see significant shortages in critical talent areas. Here’s a blueprint for beating it.

Interviewing: The 10 most common manager mistakes

02/27/2012

Conducting job interviews requires managers to strike a tricky balance between politeness and assertive evaluation. One wrong word or action can drive an applicant away—or even trigger a lawsuit. Warn managers to avoid these top 10 mistakes when interviewing job candidates.

What’s our duty to accommodate a religious need we just learned about?

02/22/2012

Q. An employee we hired a couple weeks ago just told us that he is Muslim and can’t work on Fridays. During the interview, he was asked whether anything would prohibit his working a proposed schedule that specifically included Fridays. He said no, in writing. Can we let this guy go?

Would you hesitate to hire someone who has been unemployed for a year?

01/31/2012

As the economy struggles to rebound, the stigma of long-term unemployment has lost some of its sting.

May we ask applicants about their religion?

01/25/2012

Q. When, if ever, can our company legally ask an applicant about his or her religious affiliation?

Talent-based interviewing: The 5 best questions

11/11/2011

Talent-based interviewing asks questions about real-life situations that are phrased in a unique way to elicit a candidate’s first (natural) response. This is a better assessment of future performance than simply checking whether the candidate has previously worked in a similar role (experience).