Tiff and I had lunch with the lovely Erica yesterday. We had a productive and engaging discussion on the differences between women’s and men’s communications styles in the workplace. While we didn’t necessarily come to any new conclusions on the subject, it did higlight the value of good interview questions.
Erica shared that she was once in an interview where the hiring manager asked her “how smart do you think you are?”
I don’t see the value in a question like this. What does it truly tell you about the candidate? It’s a question that would make even the most experienced job seeker uncomfortable, and doesn’t give the interviewer anything valuable to follow up with. It’s a purely pop psychology question.
If the interviewer wanted to get a good perspective on how a candidate thinks, or how comfortable she/he is in uncomfortable situations, a more direct approach would have yielded better answers.
Some suggestions:
How do you deal with difficult workplace situations?
Tell me about a time when the odds were against getting a project done on time.
Have you ever been in a work situation where you were the subject-matter expert? How did you approach teaching your coworkers?
The point of an interview is not to psychoanalyze a candidate. It’s to gather information as to how he/she reacts to work situations, and to see how he/she has applied knowledge from past work experiences.
How about, what is a Joe? Or Why are man hole covers round? Some of the more annoying questions I’ve been asked in an interview.