- February 16, 2022
- Author: Give A Grad A Go
We always advise graduates to prepare for a job interview; and the same goes for employers.
In a job interview, the aim is to gain as much information about a candidate to determine whether or not they are right for a role.
Employers will need to prepare a selection of good interview questions to ask candidates.
Given that you will already have read their graduate CV, looked on LinkedIn for a profile, and viewed their online portfolio, it should be straightforward to decipher whether or not the candidate would be perfect for the role.
Yet interviewers of all levels of experience find that this can be a real challenge in such a short space of time.
Selecting the right and unique interview questions to ask candidates can make or break when it comes to finding out the necessary information to make a decision.
Summary video for employer interview questions to ask candidates
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You'll have in your hand what the candidate can do on paper, but preparing job interview questions to ask candidates can help you make those key decisions on suitability.
When interviewing a candidate, you will be looking to find out:
- Whether or not the candidate meets the requirements of the job
- How the candidate reacts under pressure
- How well the candidate would fit in to your team
- How the candidate explains and builds upon their CV
Examine the candidate's graduate CV, including their education, previous work experience and skills they have listed - as well as enquiring about employment gaps, and questions you have.
Once you know the basics of what they can offer, move onto more investigative job interview questions to ask the candidate to help decide whether the person is right for your role.
Here are the top interview questions for employers in every industry.
20 best employer interview questions to ask candidates (general)
Here are some general interview questions for employers that can be asked for most job roles, graduate or otherwise:
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- What attracted you to this particular role / company?
- What can you tell me about our company? Are you familiar with our industry? Who would you guess are our biggest competitors?
- What is your biggest achievement to date?
- Tell me something about yourself that isn't on your CV
- Describe yourself in 3 words
- Can you tell me about a time when you overcame a challenge?
- What makes you unique?
- What kind of environment do you enjoy working in?
- What kind of management style do you prefer?
- What are your hobbies and interests outside of work?
- Who do you admire or look up to the most?
- What interests you most about this industry?
- Are there skills you'd like the opportunity to develop in the future?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Why are you leaving your current job? What will you miss about your current work environment and what will you not miss?
- How did you learn about this open position?
- What are your salary expectations?
- Are you interviewing anywhere else?
- Do you have any questions for me?
These cover the basic interview questions for employers; and you will now know what are good interview questions to ask candidates.
Asking about salary expectations and whether the candidate is interviewing elsewhere at the end of the interview can help you gauge if you're both on the same page.
If you like the candidate, this will help indicate how quickly you need to make a decision!
However, there are also more sector / job-specific interview questions to ask candidates.
Specific questions to ask an interviewee
For different roles that you are recruiting for, there are also different sets of interview questions to ask candidates based upon the skills, personality traits and experiences you want them to discuss.
Find out the best interview questions to ask graduate sales candidates, finance candidates, graduate developers, and creative candidates below.
Top 10 sales interview questions to ask candidates
If you're hiring sales candidates, chances are there will be certain character traits or attributes of a salesperson you are looking to find in your perfect graduate hire.
Are they target-driven,adaptable and confident?
Will you require the candidate to have some previous business development, sales, or client-facing experience?
By asking a combination of role-specific and skill-specific questions, you can ascertain whether the sales candidate is right for this particular graduate role.
Prepare these interview questions to ask the candidate in your sales interviews.
These employer interview questions review the candidates' skills and gauge whether the candidate is right for your sales opportunity:
- What do you think is more important; keeping clients happy, or meeting targets?
- When do you think is right to stop pursuing a client?
- How do you handle stress?
- How do you handle rejection?
- What is your ultimate career goal?
- What drew you to this company?
- What do you already know about the company?
- Tell me about a time you have gone above and beyond
- What kind of rewards do you find the most satisfying?
- Sell this company's service / product to me
Top 10 finance interview questions to ask candidates
In finance graduate recruitment, there are several strategic interview questions to ask candidates in order to work out if they are the right fit.
Finance jobs often involve long hours, therefor it's a good idea to find out whether the candidate is flexible and adaptable in their approach to work.
The candidate to should demonstrate an interest in financial markets, good knowledge of your company, and key competitors.
When deciding on the best finance interview questions to ask candidates, focus on those which will help you uncover their passion for finance, working style, and ambition.
- Are you willing to work flexibly?
- Are you willing to relocate?
- What are some of your interests outside of work?
- What do you know about our company / industry?
- Can you name a few of our competitors?
- Can you tell me about an event that has happened in the last year which has affected our industry?
- What motivates you?
- How would your previous or current colleagues describe you?
- Do you prefer to work alone or as part of a team?
- What do you think is the biggest challenge our company is currently facing?
Top 10 employer interview questions to ask a graduate developer
In IT graduate recruitment, asking the right interview questions can help you determine whether a candidate has the skills your business needs, and if they are a good fit for your team.
After reviewing their graduate CV, and their GitHub if they have one, ask questions that will prompt the candidate to elaborate on their skills, and when they have utilised them.
Look to assess whether the candidate has soft skills like communication and the ability to adapt to situations; important qualities in any graduate hire.
When interviewing a graduate developer, it's a good idea to run through their CV in depth - plus find out if they have any other skills to add to it.
After understanding their education, experiences and skills, move onto more detailed questions to find out about their motives, successful previous projects, and their methods of working.
These are some of the job interview questions to ask a candidate looking to pursue a career in IT.
- Can you list all frameworks / programming languages that you have worked with previously?
- Which are you most comfortable with?
- What is your ideal developing environment?
- Tell us about a previous successful project
- Tell us about a previous project which did not go so well. What would you do differently?
- Why do you want to be a web / software developer?
- Imagine that I know nothing about technology. Can you explain what ___ is to me?
- How do you test the quality of your codes?
- Do you prefer working with other technical people, non-technical team members, or a combination of the two?
- What are some of your other interests?
Find out how to hire Developers, with information on the different types of Developers to hire, how to write a compelling job description and how to onboard the Developer you hire.
Top 10 marketing interview questions to ask candidates
- In your own words, what's the goal of marketing? OR how would you convince someone of the value of marketing?
- What social media channels are you familiar with?
- What channels do you think we should be focusing on and why? Are there any we're currently not using that you think we should be?
- Are you familiar with our target market?
- How would you manage a new product launch?
- How do you stay up-to-date with digital marketing trends?
- What blogs and publications do you read?
- Who's your favourite marketer or marketing blogger and why?
- Which marketing tools or software platforms do you have experience using?
- Are you comfortable using data to guide decision-making?
Top 10 Interview Questions For Creatives
- What projects are you working on right now?
- What creative tech tools do you use on a daily basis?
- What do you think of our existing creative materials? What would you do differently?
- What sets you apart from other candidates that we're interviewing for this position?
- How would you describe your design style? Why do you think this contributes to our company's needs?
- What is your favourite font and why?
- What sources do you use for industry news? Can you tell us what are the latest trends you've noticed in the creative and design industry?
- Who is your favourite artist or industry creative?
- How would you feel about working towards a tight project deadline or within a strict brief?
- What, in your opinion, makes a good picture or photograph?
Alternatives to classic interview questions
'What are your weaknesses?’, ‘What motivates you to succeed?’, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’ are the standard tried-and-tested questions that crop up in nearly every job interview.
The problem with these questions is that your candidates will have likely heard them a hundred times.
Resulting in the same tired answers that have either been rehearsed meticulously or copied from the internet.
The catch 22 is that these questions are classics for good reason.
As an employer, you need to know the info that these questions should illicit e.g. where your potential employee sees themselves in five years, and whether their weaknesses are likely to affect their performance in your job etc.
By tweaking classic interview questions you’ll be able to obtain the information you need, whilst keeping candidates on their toes and avoiding clichéd answers!
We have some examples of good job interview questions to ask candidates below.
1. Instead of ‘Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?
Ask ‘What three professional achievements do you want to accomplish in the next five years?’
Why?
‘Where do you see yourself in the next five years?’ is usually greeted with a long-winded answer about how the candidate wants to be doing something which makes them happy, or that they just want to be successful in whatever they’re doing.
This alternate question encourages them to be specific.
Asking for professional achievements will enable you to bring to light what really matters to your candidate.
If all of their accomplishments focus on training, you can be sure that this is a very important aspect for them.
If they focus on leading a department or getting promoted, you can be certain this is where their motivation lies.
Encouraging the candidate to define just three things also gives the answer a finite end-point which prevents it from becoming too convoluted.
2. Instead of ‘Why do you want to work here?’
Ask ‘What attracts you to our company over ‘competitor x’?’
Why?
This question requires the candidate to think; rather than just reeling off reasons they’ve read on the ‘company culture’ section of your website.
They will need to make a comparison - which requires a higher level of thought.
This should also reveal if your interviewee is passionate about your sector.
If they are, they’ve probably considered applying to some of your competitors, so should have both a basic knowledge of them and how you differ.
3. Instead of ‘What is your greatest weakness?’
Ask ‘What do you struggle with/feel you are least competent at in your current/previous job?
Why?
‘What is your greatest weakness?’ will commonly be greeted with clichés like, ‘I’m such a perfectionist- I like things to be just-so’, or the classic, ‘I find it really difficult to switch off from work’.
Asking people for a specific flaw cuts through the waffle and coerces candidates into giving a concrete example of something they’re not great at, meaning you’ll get a more honest and relevant answer.
4. Instead of ‘What motivates you to succeed?’
Ask: ‘Tell me about a time in which you succeeded, what motivated you?’
Why?
In at number four is the age-old interview question ‘What motivates you?’.
The majority of candidates will retort with a short sentence like ‘I’m motivated by success’, or, ‘I’m motivated by seeing the results of my hard work’.
Asking interviewees for a specific example of how they’ve been motivated in the past requires them to dig a little deeper, and will stop these one-sentence answers in their tracks.
5. Instead of ‘How would you describe yourself?’
Ask: ‘How would colleagues describe you, and what has shaped their opinions?’
Why?
Most people in an interview situation will describe themselves as a hard-working, perfectionist- no one is ever going to say that they are a mediocre candidate who hates overtime and will be unwilling to go the extra mile!
Asking your interviewee what other people think of them won’t single-handedly deliver a more candid answer.
Candidates can just as easily lie about what others say about them e.g. ‘My boss used to say I was the best employee he’s ever had the pleasure of working with!’
So, asking what shaped their colleagues’ opinions will help provide more detail to their answer.
The candidate has to back up their answers with evidence, which is more difficult to concoct on the spot - e.g. rather than just stating that people think they are articulate, they have to say why people think that
i.e. ‘My line manager thought that I was articulate; I had to deliver weekly presentations to senior members of staff who complemented him about how I communicated complex business ideas’.
In graduate recruitment, it's important for employers to know the best interview questions to ask candidates. If employers want to ensure that they make the right hire, this includes both general interview questions and more role / sector-specific interview questions for employers to ask.
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- February 16, 2022
- Author: Give A Grad A Go