Want to Hire Great Talents? Ask the Right Questions

Job interviews aren’t like they used to be. Once upon a time, it was possible for an interviewee to effectively feel ambushed by a strange or unexpected interview question. Today, there are countless career sites on the Web that provide a full rundown of any and all possible interview questions. Plus, in this era of robust focus on company culture, more and more interviewers are asking questions like, “What color crayon are you?” Job applicants practically expect to get off-the-wall questions like these. It’s simply very hard to surprise them.

So what does this mean for your recruiting? What it means is that, if you really want to evaluate someone’s talent, you need to shy away from these easily rehearsed questions and instead ask things that really prove ingenuity and creative, critical thinking.

Some suggestions:

• First, I recommend looking at glassdoor.com and other career sites to see what some of the most common and predictable questions are. You probably know some of them just off the top of your head — where do you see yourself in five years? What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? The list goes on. Scratch these questions altogether; there’s no sense wasting time with something applicants can rehearse for so easily.
• I’d recommend avoiding questions that effectively…