Favorite go-to questions that reveal everything you need to know about a job candidate.
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?
One of Zappos’ core values is to “create fun and a little weirdness,” Tony Hsieh, CEO of the company, tells Business Insider.
To make sure he hires candidates with the right fit, Hsieh typically asks the question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?” He says the number isn’t too important, but it’s more about how people answer the question. Nonetheless, if “you’re a 1, you probably are a little bit too straight-laced for the Zappos culture,” he says. “If you’re a 10, you might be too psychotic for us.”
Another question Zappos usually asks candidates is: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how lucky are you in life?” Again, the number doesn’t matter too much, but if you’re a one, you don’t know why bad things happen to you (and probably blame others a lot). And if you’re a 10, you don’t understand why good things always seem to happen to you (and probably lack confidence).
2. What didn’t you get a chance to include on your resume?
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson explains in his new book “The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership,” that he isn’t a fan of the traditional job interview, reports Business Insider’s Richard Feloni.
“Obviously a good CV is important, but if you were going to hire by what they say about themselves on paper, you wouldn’t need to waste time on an interview,” Branson writes. That’s why he likes to ask: What didn’t you get a chance to include on your résumé?
3. How would you describe yourself in one word?
The best candidates are the ones who know exactly who they are. That’s why Dara Richardson-Heron, CEO of women’s organization YWCA, always asks her candidates this question.
Richardson-Heron says she doesn’t judge people on the word they choose, but it does give her insight into how people package themselves. She tells Adam Bryant at The New York Times that she likes when people take time to ponder the question and answer thoughtfully.
4. Give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically difficult problem.
Laszlo Bock, Google’s HR boss, says the company ditched its famous brainteaser interview questions in recent years for behavioral ones.
“The interesting thing about the behavioral interview is that when you ask somebody to speak to their own experience, and you drill into that, you get two kinds of information,” Bock tells The New York Times. “One is you get to see how they actually interacted in a real-world situation, and the second is the valuable ‘meta’ information you get about the candidate is a sense of what they consider to be difficult.”
5. What’s your superpower… or spirit animal?
Earlier this year writer Jeff Haden asked a bunch of smart people from a variety of fields for their favorite interview question. HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes says his is: “What’s your superpower…or spirit animal?”
“During her interview, I asked my current executive assistant what was her favorite animal. She told me it was a duck, because ducks are calm on the surface and hustling like crazy getting things done under the surface,” he tells Haden. “I think this was an amazing response and a perfect description for the role of an EA. For the record, she’s been working with us for over a year now and is amazing at her job.”
6. How old were you when you had your first paying job?
Hannah Paramore, president of Paramore, a Nashville-based interactive advertising agency, told the New York Times’ Adam Bryant that this is one of her favorite questions.
“I’m looking for how deeply instilled their work ethic and independence are versus entitlement,” she tells Business Insider. “If they worked part time in high school and college because they needed to, especially in jobs that were just hard work, that shows a huge level of personal responsibility. I love people who have to patch success together from a number of different angles.”
7. Can you tell me the story of your prior successes, challenges, and major responsibilities?
Lonne Jaffe, chief executive of software company Syncsort, says in a New York Times interview with Adam Bryant that he always wants to see how well a job candidate can tell a story.
He tells Business Insider that as long as we’ve had language, storytelling has been a powerful communication tool. “In business, creating a compelling narrative is invaluable for motivating a team, explaining strategic priorities in a way that’s easy for others to understand, or communicating complex ideas to customers and prospects. Successful senior-level leaders are good storytellers, and it’s also a very useful skill early on in your career.”
Jaffe says he recognized the importance of storytelling early in his career while working at IBM. “Storytelling is especially important in the tech industry because technology can be “very complex, and sometimes people find technical details to be somewhat boring,” he says.
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