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You are here: Home / Featured Home / Best interview questions asked in 2018

Best interview questions asked in 2018

January 7, 2019 By Lynn Varacalli Cavanaugh

Women in the corner office frequently face greater scrutiny than men throughout their careers, according to a recent Korn/Ferry International survey. And that means, you’ll be judged for every decision you make, including deciding who to hire.

So why not try a new approach to interviewing that may help you make the best possible hires? Say a candidate looks great on paper and even more promising in person, but you need to know more about their personality. When faced with a really high-pressure situation, how will this person perform?

In this tight job market, you might want to go beyond the typical “Can you tell me a little about yourself?” and “What are your greatest professional strengths?” type of questions when interviewing someone.

Recruitment teams are taking a different tact these days and doing whatever they can to separate the best candidates from the best-practiced candidates, or those who are well-rehearsed in answering the typical interview questions.

Questions that add value

Sometimes this means throwing a few curveball questions a candidate’s way. While the following unusual questions – culled from real interviews and shared by employees on Glassdoor – may sound strange, each has value that can really add to the interview process:

  1. What’s your spirit animal? – Government employee
  2. If a lion and a tiger fought, who would win and why? – Lawyer
  3. If your neighbor asked your child to supervise a pool party at their house, would you let your child go? – Lawyer
  4. What would you do if you found an elephant in your backyard? – Management student
  5. What would you name this painting and why (referencing an abstract painting on the wall)? – Insurance underwriter
  6. How do you fit a giraffe in a fridge? – Lawyer
  7. If you were a movie character, who would you be and why? – Network administrator
  8. What would you want your title to be when you retire? – Engineer
  9. Describe how you would make me a sandwich. – HR professional
  10. How much would you charge to clean all the windows in Chicago? – Doctor
  11. If you don’t get this job what’s your backup plan? – Sales rep
  12. If you were a flower, what kind would you be and why? – HR professional
  13. What were you like in high school? – HR Professional
  14. Would you be comfortable working in a hospital, since you were born in one? – Social worker
  15. Are you a superstar? – Marketing professional
  16. If you turned around and in the doorway was a penguin with a mustache, wearing a big sombrero and poncho, what do you think the penguin would say? – Medical school resident

Can they think outside the box?

The point to asking these types of open-ended questions is to see what a candidate is like off script. For example, asking “How do you fit a giraffe in a fridge?” would show that a person can think outside the box and come up with creative solutions and, in a real work situation, can connect abstract concepts and ideas to a customer problem, internal process or sale.

On the other hand, if the candidate responds with “I don’t know” or get flustered, that might tell you that this person cannot think on their feet and might not be the best person for the job. The best hires are those who can identify problems quickly and solve them efficiently.

HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes asked his current executive assistant, “What’s your spirit animal?” and hired her because she said a duck. She answered that the animal is “calm on the surface and hustling like crazy getting things done under the surface,” and it was the “perfect description” for the job, he says.

But try not to be too hard on your candidates if you don’t get a good answer. Remember, they’re nervous and will be thrown off guard by these unusual questions. So, it’s best to not use these questions as the only barometer to gauging a candidate.

It’s difficult to pick the right person, and you may need to experiment with different types of open-ended questions until you find your own go-to question that seems to work perfectly for you.

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Filed Under: Featured Home Tagged With: hiring, interview, interview questions, job candidate, new hire

About Lynn Varacalli Cavanaugh

“An important attribute of success is to be yourself. Never hide what makes you, you." -- Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo

As editor-in-chief of Woman’s Own and American Woman magazines, I have championed the personal and professional development of women for years. I started my career unsure of my own path and abilities, but I always had a natural curiosity and an interest in words and writing. When selected to launch American Woman as editor-in-chief, after a string of editorial jobs, I was thrilled—and terrified at being responsible for a brand new venture. All I could do was my best, based on my instincts and years of experience. American Woman was a success, offering me things I hadn’t achieved before—the confidence to do public speaking and a journalism award (Exceptional Merit Media award from the National Women’s Political Caucus & Radcliffe College). I hope my insights, now as an editor for Progressive Women’s Leadership, will help you on your own journey to career success.

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