Revitalize Your Interview Questions - My Top 3 and Why

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Thank you for your feedback, requests and words of encouragement. We heard you and we are back with new content ready to be delivered to you on a regular basis. 

Much like our event The Gathering, some of our most popular posts are those that have tangible take aways that you can go and implement in your day to day - in the spirit of Talent Lab and supporting the recruitment community in their development that is exactly what this post is all about.

Having just started a brand new role one of my first tasks at hand was to develop my own Recruitment Interview Guide to throughly assess each candidate. As the gate keeper to the company this is one of the most critical tools I will use to assess culture and key competencies. While I needed to tailor my guide to my new company's unique culture there were definitely some of my tried and true questions that showed up and I just cannot go without. 

Here are my top 3 and why:

Can you give me a specific example of a time that you failed and what you learned from it?

You are going to hear ALL kinds of excuses when you ask this one, "well I don't really see this as a failure but..." or "it was really out of my control" - its human nature to avoid admitting failures so that's my cue to keep pushing, I am asking about a situation where YOU impacted the failure. For someone to share an authentic answer shows self knowledge, humility and an egoless nature - three very key attributes I want to see in my hires.

What is missing from your current job that you want to see in your next position?

What I'm looking for here is the motivating factor of why someone would leave their current role. Are they in love with their role and just having an exploratory chat with you? Are they looking for further development and mentorship and this triggers you to share about your internal pipeline program complete with management and skill training? This questions reveals so much and can give you a lot of insight as to what the candidate is really thinking.

Tell me about your goals - personal/career, where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

I asked this to a candidate today and he said "did you used to work at lululemon or something?" AMAZING. Why as a matter of fact I did! And if goal setting is synonymous with lululemon then they are doing something right! How can I place a candidate into our company without knowing what they want to get up to in their life and if we will be able support and cultivate those goals? Choosing a new role is a life decision and I want to ensure its the right one for both parties.

There you have it, my top 3! I would LOVE to hear yours, comment below and remember sharing elevates the world around you.

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ALISHA ADAMS, CO-FOUNDER OF TALENT LAB & SR MANAGER OF TALENT AT CACTUS CLUB