Finding the right hire: HR pros share favorite job interview questions

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By Sam Bonacci

Interviewing prospective employees is as much an art as it is a science, and a process that only the most specialized professionals carry out on a regular basis. For the rest, who have much less practice, delving into whether a person is a good fit for the job and the organization can be a challenge.

We asked three human resource professionals within Central Massachusetts to share their three “go to” questions that they use when they interview candidates. These are the questions they ask to help determine if a candidate is a good fit.

ISAAC 'IRV' NAAR

Vice President of Talent Acquisition, Physician Recruitment and HR Automation;
UMass Memorial Health Care

Naar’s questions are designed to tap into a candidate’s personality and steer them away from practiced answers they may have worked on prior to the interview.

• “Give me three adjectives to describe yourself and three adjectives someone you had a conflict with or didn’t like you would use to describe you.”
• “If you were running the company you work for, what would you change?”
• “Tell me something about yourself that you didn’t include on your resume.”

WHY THESE QUESTIONS? While the first question opens up a door to self-confession and self-perceived weaknesses, Naar said, the second taps into potential employees’ breadth of thought, revealing whether they think about the bigger picture. With the third question, Naar said he tries to explore what a potential employee is really focused on.

“Everyone who works in health care needs to understand they are here for the patient no matter what they do,” Naar said. “You wouldn’t want to hire an accountant who says they just do numbers and are not here for the patients.”

MARK McAULIFFE

Director of Global Staffing; Waters Corp., in Milford

When he interviews prospects, McAuliffe tries to seek open answers to use as jumping-off points to other questions.

• “Can you describe your more significant career accomplishment to date?”
• “What do you do to broaden your thinking in your personal development?”
• “How would you solve this problem?” (with the problem being supplied by the hiring manager)

WHY THESE QUESTIONS? These questions get at the person’s strategic thinking, goals and curiosity, McAuliffe said. The work environment at Waters thrives on employees’ ability to be curious and solve problems, he said, and keeping that in mind during the interview process allows the company to continue to hire people who will help Waters thrive.

“The heart of it is (that) you give the candidate the opportunity to expose what they think is most important,” McAuliffe said. “So you’re seeing if what they think is most important is a fit for what you feel is most important.”

SUSAN COX

Senior HR Generalist; Seven Hills Foundation, Worcester

Cox’s questions seek to tap into a person’s long-term goals to get an idea of what they value and how long they intend to be with the company.

• “What interests you the most about this position and working for the company and how will it fit into your overall career goals?”
• “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
• “Why are you leaving your current employer?”

WHY THESE QUESTIONS? These questions should give an idea of candidates’ long-term visions and how they could fit in with the company, as well as what they need from an employer if they get the job, Cox said. But the key to any question is making sure it’s open ended and draws out a revealing response, she added.

Bottom line: Who’s the best fit?

Those who conduct interviews should also seek to tap into the person’s past experiences, said Jane Fontaine, vice president of human resources and training at Digital Federal Credit Union.

That’s the basis of situational and behavioral questions. These interview questions aim to put the candidate off balance by asking about specific instances, such as when a project did not go according to plan and how they managed it, she said. The concept behind these questions is that these past behaviors are the best possible indications of how the person will behave, Fontaine said. In that line of interviewing, there are no right or wrong answers, just ones that will indicate whether the person is a good fit and how they work under pressure.

“The person being interviewed is not going to have all these pre-packaged answers and will not answer in generalities,” Fontaine said. “Once you have looked at all the candidates you can decide who best is going to fit in this work environment and this culture.”