Victoria A. Hoevemeyer - High-Impact Interview Questions: 701 Behavior-Based Questions to Find the Right Person for Every Job

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HIGH-IMPACT
INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS

701 Behavior-Based Questions to
Find the Right Person for Every Job

VICTORIA A. HOEVEMEYER

Foreword by Paul Falcone

To my father, Kurt, for all his love and support and in memory of
the two most incredible women Ive ever known
my grandmother, Dorothy Caroline Hiser,
and my mother, Donna Joyce.

by Paul Falcone

by Richard Finnegan

THE CONCEPT OF behavior-based interviewing has been around for some time now, but nowhere is the art and technique developed as well as in Victoria Hoevemeyers High-Impact Interview Questions: 701 Behavior-Based Questions to Find the Right Person for Every Job. Finally an entire text is dedicated to the critical task of framing interviewing questions around candidates real-life experiencesquestions that will prompt factual answers and focus on future competencies and abilities.

Interviewing has never been a simple process, primarily because we all know how hard people can be to read. Many job candidates are well-studied interviewees, but their performance, once hired, may not coincide with the superstar/hero figure they portrayed during initial evaluation. So much rides on hiring the right peopleteam camaraderie, group productivity, and a positive work environmentthat one poor decision could set you and your team back significantly. Its not even uncommon to see managers who tend to leave positions unfilled for long periods of time for fear of hiring someone who doesnt fit in.

Fair enough, but we cant lead our business lives by avoidance or fear of making mistakes. If its true that the productivity of human capital is the only profit lever in todays knowledge-based economy, then weve got to hire the best and brightest and develop them to their fullest potential. Your front-end people reading skills and selection abilities, therefore, will remain one of your most important portable skill sets as you advance in your own career.

Even if youre not totally comfortable now with your abilities in this area, fear not! Interviewing to make high probability hires (remember, no ones asking for guarantees when it comes to people forecasting) is a learnable skill. With just a little focus and commitment on your part, you can develop an interviewing routine thats uniquely yours. And employing a behavior-based interviewing format based on the competencies you value and hold dear will give you greater confidence in your abilities to spot talent, which in turn will result in stronger hires (which further strengthens your confidence!).

Behavioral interviewing is based on real analysis of historical on-the-job performance. Victoria Hoevemeyers new book makes it so much easier to get to know the real candidate by providing you with competency-based questions for specific scenarios. Whether youre looking to identify corporate-wide competencies or job-specific competencies in a prospective new hire, youll find behavioral questions specific to multiple scenarios.

The premise is simple: Behavioral interview techniques attempt to relate a candidates answers to specific past experiences and focus on projecting potential performance from past actions. By relating a candidates answers to specific past experiences, youll develop a reliable indicator of how that individual will most likely perform in the future. Behavioral interview questioning strategies do not deny that people can learn from their mistakes and alter their behaviors. However, they do assume that future behavior will closely reflect past actions.

Furthermore, behavior-based questioning techniques ensure spontaneity since candidates cant prepare for them in advance. Rehearsed answers to traditional interview questions go by the wayside in an ad hoc environment where candidates tell stories about their real-life work performance. And because behavioral interview questions tie responses to concrete past events, candidates naturally minimize any inclination to exaggerate answers. Hence, youre assured of more accurate responses during your interview, and youre provided with specific information to use a little later down the line when checking references.

The unpredictable course of a behavior-based interview exchange may sound something like this: