You're asking too many questions at interview

Pick the right questions, then shut up.

As interviewers, it is our job to "discover" the person sitting across from us. For a job interview, this means professionally trying to find the right fit (i.e., the best performer having the most fun performing), trying to control our human biases, and secretly trying to uncover a qualifying or disqualifying truth no one else but us could have noticed. I call this last my Columbo fantasy!

These motives inform our performance. We are paid to make the right hire for the business. We need a new person to fill a hole on our team, or we have been asked to help judge a potential new teammate. We have limited time to do this, competing priorities in our heads, and often not enough definition of what we really need.

Add to this the unique circumstance of a job interview with the tacit assumption that the person across the desk is exaggerating at best, and it becomes easy to fall back on a challenging set of questions designed to weed out the wrong types. The more questions there are (and the tougher the questions) the more likely we'll be left with just one candidate standing and we will have done a good job. As if each extra question is another success filter.

Here's the problem. Your questions are unlikely to do more than confirm your thin-slice bias. They are likely to make the candidate uneasy or defensive. By asking too many questions, you are not allowing the conversation to flow as it ought to and, therefore, are missing out on some really profound information the candidate would offer if you were to simply let them talk.

On questions

Questions at a 1-hour interview should follow a few set rules:

• Pick no more than seven questions, but preferably five.

  
  

• As you are limited in the total number of questions, think hard about which five questions genuinely capture the work to be done and the character to enjoy doing it at a high level.

  
  

• All the candidates get the same five questions to help limit bias.

  
  

• Someone else in the interview takes notes (or record the interview) to compare answers afterwards.

  
  

• Once you've asked the question, shut up and let the candidate talk.

Good questions are difficult to invent. It's hard to get them exactly right, but the effort you put into designing them as part of the interview process means you end up with solid, effective questions that directly address the hiring need. Good answers to these questions correlate to a high probability of success in the role.

If the questions are good, it makes sense to let them run. Don't jump in because the candidate sounds like they know their stuff. Let them keep talking. The real value in these conversations comes in developing a broader understanding of the person across the table. Why interrupt this glimpse into their thinking style to get to the next question?

Letting people talk without accidentally steering the conversation is a challenging but vital skill to master to understand the human being sitting across from you. Listening with intent requires patience, concentration, and tuning the senses to hear without attempting to divert. Helping a conversation to continue involves proactive shutting up. Encouraging the interviewee to talk via body language, nods and murmurs rather than direct or leading questions. A couple of key ideas can be beneficial as you practice:

Biographer, not investigator

Think of yourself as a biographer rather than an investigator. A biographer is innately interested in breadth and texture as much as detail. Be fascinated with your subject and their replies, and encourage them to keep on talking. Statements such as "go on" or "tell me more" or "and after that?" are useful crutches to help you learn the skill, but nods and grunts can work too. This stuff is all very Columbo, by the way.

Look deeper than the stock answer

In the same spirit, look for the second and third explanations. How many times have you started an interview with a question like "Why move on from your current place?" and got a boilerplate answer, only to learn the real truth much later in the interview on another subject once you have established rapport with the interviewee? These later answers are far more relevant and revealing to their real motivations.

Concentrate

Pay attention. We're used to multitasking, carrying on two or more tasks simultaneously. Video interviews worsen this problem by giving screen space to distractions like emails and Slack messages. As an interviewer, your primary responsibility is to truly listen to the answers to the key questions, which will demonstrate whether the interviewee is the best hire. Turn off distractions and lean forward slightly in your chair so your chest is ahead of your hips. Hostage negotiator Richard Mullender calls this the "It cost how much? position". The position you subconsciously adopt when full attention to the subject at hand is required, because learning the next piece of information has suddenly become vital. This position, and its philosophy, allows the interviewer to truly hear what is being said, both the words and the intentions.

You are not entitled to your opinions

You are a professional interviewer, paid to pay attention to what is actually being said, not what you would like or expect to hear. A candidate's exact choice of words speaks to their distinct personality, and your only role is to capture this. Not to agree or disagree, but to chronicle. You can do analytics and review of your recording or notes later on. Turn off your opinions in the room, and concentrate on understanding instead.

Tie it all together at the end

Columbo had "just one more thing". For him, this was the big reveal of all the pieces he'd tied together to let the criminal know he was on to them. For us interviewers, our "one more thing" is more of a synopsis to make sure we have truly understood the candidate and their motivations. Begin with phrases like "It seems to me", or "Have I understood you fully?" and then recap or summarise everything covered in the interview. Our job here is to ensure we didn't miss anything, give them another chance at those second and third versions of answers, and most importantly, to let the candidate know they were heard.

Not only do these techniques more effectively solve the problems around hiring the right person, they also boost your chances of securing the candidate you want to hire. It turns out human beings really like to be listened to, and have a deep need to be heard. By simply doing your job well you can create meaningful bonds with a candidate that express the values of your organisation. This bonding reassures a candidate that this is a good choice for their career. If you can help find the right person whilst at the same time helping them to understand and appreciate why this is likely the right place for them you can build considerable competitive advantage over time.

The benefit of this practice is better interviews, which means better hiring, higher-performing teams, better retention, and thus even better choice of applicants in the future. We make our own success when we start truly listening to the human being across the desk. To do this, we need fewer questions, less talk from us, and more direct attention to what is really being said.

Columbo doesn't ask many questions. Why do you?