It's surprising to know that hiring managers ask irrelevant questions to candidates that end up reaching another area of the subject to be dealt. Imagine the interviewer asks questions like the ones given below:
- What would you ask a candidate if you were an interviewer?
- What kind of animal would you like to be?
- If you could have all the ice cream in the world, how many different flavors would you like to make a sundae and how many toppings would you pick for it?
Such questions seem meaningless from the perspective of a candidate. These questions end up being a matter of ridicule. It would become meme material. Hiring Managers defend themselves by explaining how the candidate reacts and responds to unexpected, strange questions like these.
It's a waste of time
Google's Laszlo Bock describes these questions to be a complete waste of time. Although, they were considered unique interview questions to ask, today they are useless. HR leaders or Talent advisors are anxious about how senior managers consider questions to hire the best candidates.
Also Read: 35+ Interview Questions that are asked to Hiring Managers Interview
Some unique interview questions can be:
- Why did you leave your previous job? What did you dislike about it?
- Why do you want to get hired for this job?
- Tell more about your strengths and weaknesses and how you will implement them here. How do you portray yourself in the future?
So, what's wrong with these? Questions like these may seem ethical for hiring but they are illogical. If the objective is to hire mediocre, lazy, and unprepared employees, this may work. Anyone can search for answers on the internet. These top the list when you type interview questions and answers. Ideal answers are just a click away. The Accountemps survey's most popular questions are only listed in the Muse of 31's list of common questions too. Maybe these questions were unique interview questions in the absence of the internet. Today, they are not all.
Unfortunately, managers believe that they can judge the quality of a candidate. While these questions should be supported by behavioral-related questions for identifying the "A" talent.
Accountemps surveyed senior managers of companies and resulted that they do not want to be in a senior position. On the other hand, the ERE conducted a survey of the State of Talent Acquisition Survey in 2016. This claimed that in very large companies hiring managers do a better job selecting and recruiting candidates than their Talent advisor teams.
Some non-conventional ways for a candidate interview
Writing about hiring managers, Dr. John Sullivan observes that they have about an eighty percent error rate in selecting the ideal candidates. Dr. John Sullivan also says that the conventional form of interview training does not have an affirmative impact on improving hiring results.
Also Read: 20 Common Questions asked in Interviews
Here are ways to adopt non-conventional ways to interview candidates:
- You can ask hiring managers about the unique interview questions. Gradually you can make them realize how ineffective and illogical their questions are. Tell them about how those questions do not reflect upon the behavioral side of the candidates.
- You can identify successful managers and try convincing them to explain to their colleagues. This has to be a peer-to-peer interaction so it can have good outcomes. It does not shackle the improvement of the hiring managers.
- The talent advisors can also conduct classes to educate the hiring managers about real unique interview questions to ask. Somehow making them understand can result in the product candidates. This can also help in improving the standards of the hiring organization.
- ERE offers training courses designed by Talent advisors. It is a complete session on interviewing life cycle. As in generalist environments, if recruiters have just joined their jobs, it is possible to bring them too. So taking the course can benefit them by also educating the other hiring managers. Experienced recruiters can also take this course up and make improvements in their strategies. Later on, they can work with hiring managers.
- You can sit together framing unique interview questions that are interesting, test the skills of candidates, make them think before answering and reflects on their behavioral aspects of life. They can be the ones that benefit the working of the company.
These are some effective ways.