Interview Tips: How Interviewers Use Questions?

This type of question enables interviewers to uncover information which they may otherwise not know exists.

Summarising
Interviewers build up a picture of candidate piece by piece, trying to recognize common threads in the many things they said.  If a particular characteristic is supported by several comments a candidate makes, the interviewer can assume that the person has this characteristic.  However, if there is not sufficient information to do this, the interviewer an summarise what candidates have said to help them see gaps in their explanation.  For example:

• Interviewer:  You said that your supervisor encourage people to use their initiative but are not you suggesting now that on this occasion you were criticized for showing initiative?
• Candidate:  Well, perhaps that was because I’d left the telephone unattended for half an hour to sort out the problem.

Interviewers can also summarise to check an assumption.  For example:

• Interviewer:  You started the department’s theatre club but handed over the running to someone else soon afterwards, and you took an active part in reorganizing the record systems, although you say you don’t like maintaining the records.  It seems to me that you are happier when things are changing and don’t particularly like routine work.  Is that a fair comment?

Exerting Pressure
Some interviewers use question to put candidates under pressure to see how they cope.  There is disagreement about whether coping with this type of pressure bears any relation to coping with work pressures but some interviewers use the technique. For example:

• Interviewer:  So you don’t think you should have to follow your manager’s advice?
• Candidate:  Well, on this occasion I was doing the job and I knew that it would be better to do it my own way.
• Interviewer:  So are you saying that you know better than someone who has far more experience than you?
• Candidate:  This time I think I did.
• Interviewer:  So you don’t think experience counts for anything?

Silence
Periods of silence in a conversation, particularly in a situation like an interview, can make use feel very uncomfortable.  We feel as if we ought to be saying something to fill the gap.  Simply by remaining silent when candidates stop talking, interviewers can encourage them to continue and explain further.

Playing down
If candidates say or intimate something which obviously reflects unfavourably on them, interviewers have the choice of either asking about it openly or playing it down.  If they ask a direct question the candidate is likely to be defensive and not say much.  If on the other hand, the interviewers seems to place a little importance on it, by the choice of next question, the candidate is more likely to continue talking about the situation.  For example, if someone has been disciplined in a job for serious misconduct, and the interviewer wants to know the reasons, instead of asking “Why were you disciplined?”, the interviewer could ask something like ”Are you company’s rules and regulations particularly strict then?”  The latter question although not asking “Why’ directly, is much more likely to get the candidate to talk honestly about the situation and to reveal the reasons.

As well as being able to use question in these different ways interviewers can also use different types of question.