You Can Get Inside a Candidate’s Head With Riddle-Like Questions
By: Sara Kiani
Tags: Communication, Work, Business, Recruitment, Interview

Traditional interviews say nothing of future job performance

The purpose of the job interview is for both parties to learn more about each other in order to determine whether they would be a good fit. I tend to get lost in the preparation process and forget that.

I often find myself tweaking and polishing my answers to the point where I start to describe a person I think they would see as the best fit, as opposed to just giving authentic answers. Most people stick to providing answers that “they want to hear”. And by “they” I mean recruiters, hiring managers, etc.

Nothing wrong with thinking things through properly and carefully before a job interview, but you’re — paradoxically — focusing on the wrong thing if your priority is to perform well on the interview.

As an organizational psychologist, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic emphasizes in his article, formal interview questions are just “another means of impression management and performance display”. This is in agreement with the views of psychology professor Dr. Noam Shpancer, who argues in his article that “interview performance is a poor predictor of job performance” simply because an interview constitutes a small sample of the interviewee’s behavior, which tells us little about his/hers overall behavior.

All interviews are essentially artificial social situations in which candidates are asked to present the best version of themselves, all while pretending to be themselves. — Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

I don’t believe people fake their way through interviews mindfully, but I believe traditional interviews bring out the inner “test-taker”. The preparation before the job interview becomes more about doing well on “the test” because somewhere along the line you start to think that “doing well” in the interview is equal to “not being rejected”.

Wait, what?! I’m not wasting my time — I am there to land a job. But most of all, I don’t want to go through the whole process again…

Informal conversations are more efficient

According to a recruiter sentiment study, a candidate goes through at least three interviews before a job offer is made says 51% of recruiters. I can relate to that, and it’s often quite a waste of time and money due to rigid recruitment processes.

In many of the times I’ve entered hiring processes, I’ve always been asked the same standard questions at different stages. First in a phone call with a recruiter who’s been assigned to sift out the “idiots” that didn’t “study for the test”. Then in a first interview with the manager who’s been instructed to follow the recruitment guidelines (that mainly mirrors the first step in the process). Then in a third interview by the manager’s manager, who doesn’t even care at this point because if the candidate has made it this far then it’s a done deal. So you tell them — again, what you think they want to hear — one last time before you potentially get an offer.

Sometimes, however, recruitment processes get bent by people who prefer to act fast. Those people also know how to get away with it, but they won’t bother unless it’s a sure thing.

I recently went through a quick hiring process, and I think the combination of my newfound maturity (self-awareness) and the intuition and experience of the hiring manager made it possible for us to click and reach a mutual certainty, only an hour into the conversation.

Now that I’ve reached a certain level of completed interviews — and life experience — I realize that the more descriptive, authentic, and influential you are as an interviewee, the shorter and faster the interview process becomes. The better you are as an interviewer at reading people, the cleverer multidimensional questions you’re able to shoot, and the quicker you’re able to reach a conclusion.

Multi-dimensional questions reveal if you walk the talk

One such multidimensional question, which I was asked towards the end of an hour-long job interview years ago, is:

Do you have a role model — and if so, who?

It was a seemingly spontaneous question, asked in an off-the-record manner, which caught me off-guard. In my experience, it wasn’t quite common as the other standard job interview questions, but still valid — depending on what conclusions the interviewer is able to draw from the answer.

I had to pause to think for at least 15 seconds, and I kept thinking that this doesn’t count because it’s just an extra, informal question. Little did I know that this was the one question that would ensure them that I also walked the talk.

The interviewer, who probably saw that my head was about to blow up, actually had to stop my hm’s and um’s to clarify that there is no right or wrong answer and that he was just curious to know.

Perhaps they had an idea of what my answer would (or should) be, based on what I had been saying during the interview. In retrospect, it wasn’t a coincidence that this was their very last question for me.

Unrehearsable answers show true colors

In an attempt to answer the “role-model” question, my mind initially went towards the “right” answer, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what kind of role model they would expect to hear from me. One of the great minds of the industry? Heroes of change management? Someone in a completely different field?

Lame! Lamer! And no way.

My mind went blank and I could not come up with anything of substance, but I obviously had to say something. I had no choice but, to be honest about not having an interesting role-model and own up to it.

Then something interesting came out of my mouth.

Um… I don’t really have a specific role model, to be honest. The thing is that I tend to pick traits and abilities from different people that I wish to learn and adopt. And it makes up a momentary model of my future self, which is who I aim to be. But that model never stays the same, it constantly evolves. I always have an idea of who I want to be and you could say it’s a combination of different traits. In a sense, that’s my role model. But yeah no, I don’t have an ACTUAL role-model…

Luckily, I could tell by their facial expressions that the interview was over — in a good way. Heads were nodding in slow motion, a genuine smile, and what I could only assume was speechlessness. I had inadvertently uttered an “elevator pitch”, which fit the essence of the role and position perfectly. They already seemed to have made up their minds.

I ended up getting the job, no third interview necessary.

Photo by Juri Gianfrancesco on Unsplash

It’s a chat, not an interrogation

Only in informal interviews do we feel safe to be authentic, because there are no right or wrong answers. Whereas an “interview”, a “test” or a “hearing” has a different tone to it and implies that you’re being examined.

Performance anxiety, anyone?

No, my best interviews haven’t felt like interviews at all. They’ve all been conducted by very creative interviewers, who managed to get answers to most of the common questions without actually asking them out loud.

They’ve managed to take the pressure off of the interviewee and turn the interview into an easy-going conversation instead of an interrogation. Most importantly, they’ve had a clear purpose of discovering who I am and how I think — on my feet and outside my comfort zone — as opposed to my past and present labels.

Most importantly, they’ve had a clear purpose of discovering who I am and how I think — on my feet and outside my comfort zone — as opposed to my past and present labels.

Since uncommon questions require more analysis and creativity, this interview form is optimal for people who have reached a certain level of both self-awareness and experience. Moreover, it’s probably better suited for positions that resemble those requirements as well.

Practical and conclusive tips

The truth is that any open-ended question can show your true colors, as long as it’s specific, personal, and unexpected.

Some multi-dimensional interview questions are:

What keeps you up at night, and why?

What is your happy place like, and why?

Would you rather [go through this] or [go through that], and why?

Interviewees should focus on determining their traits and behavioral tendencies prior to the interview and keep them in mind (and stay consistent) when answering these kinds of personal, riddle-like questions.