Ask real questions, get real answers.

There's a litany of boilerplate questions that employers ask candidates and many of them are, frankly, fluff. The odds of getting a genuine answer are low. When there's limited time in each encounter with a candidate, and when there's limited time to find a match for your job, why waste time?

Here's some examples below. No doubt there are questions here to which employers would love to hear an answer, but the problem is they aren't crafted in a way that relates to the candidate's perspective. They invariably invite the candidate to make something up on the spot, or worse, have a canned answer they prepared for some other employer long ago.

"Tell us why you want to work for our company?"

"Give me an example of your biggest strength and your biggest weakness?"

"How would your past co-workers describe you?"

"What do you like about our products/services?"

"Do you prefer working with a team or independently?"

If you've ever been asked variants of the above questions, you know what I'm talking about. You devised a safe, multi-purpose "Swiss army knife" answer to each one a long time ago, which means we've all just sort of accepted that none of these answers are genuine heartfelt sentiments. When an employer asks these questions, the expectation is to just get the right answers, not the real answers.

Try this, employers: Ask real questions, get real answers. By asking genuine questions that take into account the perspective of the job-seeker, we get the candidate to talk. Interviews should never be binary yes/no checklists and they should allow for some unexpected responses. The conversation should be organic and leave room for follow-up questions on interesting points.

Ask questions that start conversations. For instance, some alternatives to the above questions might be:

"Is there something in particular that attracted you to our job posting or company? How does it fit your career plans?"

"Tell me about something that has frustrated you in a past position and you try to avoid in your next."

"If you could get training or certification in any area provided by your next employer, what would it be? How would that help you?"

"We're all human beings, which means we get along most of the time, but not all of the time. How do you handle those times you're at odds with a team member or a business partner?" (Following their answer, get them to provide an example. But get their answer first and compare the example scenario to the answer.)

"Have you ever seen what we do/make here? I can fill in any gaps at a high level for you."

"What's your ideal situation when you need to get something done to meet a deadline? What's that like for you, what do you do to help yourself?" and follow up question: "When is the right time to ask for help to get something done?"

Ask revealing questions at your candidate's level. Avoid perching you and your company on an ivory tower to ask imperious questions like "Why are you here before us?" The point here is to stop playing the interview game that has tired rules and nets the same old results. Have a real conversation about them and your job opening.

Ultimately, the goal is to find out what they offer, but also what their boundaries are. Will they be present at crunch time? Do they shut down socially in pressure situations? Do their complaints about past employment experiences have a common theme, and more important, do they span multiple employers (a sign that the problem may be them, not the employers).

A note about discovering weaknesses - interviews should not be traps full of "gotchya" questions. Firstly, candidates know they have weaknesses but they're rarely going to tell you exactly what they really are. Why would they? We are a society that believes in avoiding self-incrimination. At least in America, it's literally one of our inalienable rights. That being said, candidates do have development goals for themselves, and they do have boundaries they would prefer not to cross. Some don't like to work late hours or travel. Some don't like to have meetings. Some wish they knew more about Excel. Having a real conversation with a candidate has a better chance of revealing these things. Also very important: Dunning-Kruger is a real thing. We as fallible humans simply don't know what we don't know. So asking a candidate what they don't know is sort of pointless. Asking what they wish they knew - that's a doorway to a revealing conversation about themselves. And if we're made to feel comfortable, most of us like to talk about ourselves.

Interviews are conversations in which people are introduced for the first time and get to know each other. And the best way to do that is to ask real questions, and get real answers.

As always, Happy Hunting out there. May ideal candidates and employers find each other swiftly.