Interview Questions Recruiters Should Stop Asking

By Selipha Kihagi

The interview stage is what recruiters use to determine which candidate is most suitable for a position in addition to their CVs and Cover Letters. For this reason, recruiters and employers usually have a set of interview questions that they use to differentiate what they consider the best candidates for the position. But are recruiters asking the wrong interview questions?

If you do your search on interview questions to expect, you will almost always find similar questions. And while they are common and every recruiter has used them one time or the other, there are questions that recruiters should stop asking if they want to hire the best candidates. The right hire would be someone who will be able to perform in the job at hand for a certain period of time without there being any need for going back to the drawing board.

So, if you are a recruiter and have previously had a problem finding the right candidate for a position, it might be time to abandon these questions.

Interview Questions Recruiters should Stop Asking

1. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Some have already abandoned this question after realizing it doesn’t do much in discovering who the right candidate for a job is. Just think about it; most job seekers today can’t tell where they want to be in the next one year leave alone the 5 that you’ll be asking about. However, these same job seekers know they want to work their best in the jobs they get so they can gain experience and have the opportunity to identify their best career direction.

 If you made a decision based on this question, then you are not being fair in your judgment and will probably end up with a bad hire who just rehearsed the answer for the purpose of the interview.

2. What is your greatest weakness?

This is one of the other most common questions you will find and in all honesty, it doesn’t add value when choosing the right candidate. While we have tackled this question before and outlined what employers and recruiters want to know by asking this, the answers given would be too vague and too rehearsed to act as a deciding factor.

They would also be too generic and similar among job candidates that settling on the right candidate would be almost by luck. In a job market that is getting competitive day by day, this question would not be the most ideal.

3. Why should we hire you?

This question is the other version of ‘Tell me about yourself’” and while most job interviews will start with the latter, answers are always vague and rehearsed like the weakness and strengths questions. Once a recruiter asks “Why should we hire you”, what they expect to hear is what the candidate thinks is the best skill they will be offering the company.

They also want to hear how much research the candidate has done on their company and use that to gauge how impressed they are about the candidate. While there is nothing wrong with trying to identify the best skill or trait that a candidate has, this question doesn’t always provide value to the job at hand. Any answer would be in praise to the company and how badly the candidate wants the job, but is what the candidate wants enough to attribute performance in the job once filled? The answer you are looking for is no.

Instead of asking the common interview questions that every recruiter and employer is asking, recruiters should formulate questions that are specific to the role at hand. How about forgetting about the “tell me about yourself” and related questions for a minute and do research on the candidate for a change? What has the candidate been up to lately? How are their social media profiles? Does their timeline translate to the ideal person for the job? Would the company culture handle a person of that nature?

The job market is changing and recruiters should also change and adapt accordingly.

Do you have anything to add? Leave a comment. And while at it, follow us on LinkedIn here.

15 Comments

  1. Hi,
    I somehow concur with what Benjamin says. Though if I were an employer I would focus more on the number of years (experience) one has on the job. I am a trained secretary/PA but in my first 10 years of employment I was a clerk and promoted to a supervisor in the shipping industry. Years later, I am now a PA in a law firm.

    Selipha,
    Your article is very insighful. I think it should be circulated to all employers! Kudos.

  2. They need to stop some unnecessary questions like such.have been a victim of the same.

  3. Last week I was interviewed at 20:16 hrs and I was asked to produce marriage certificate, then the issue of salary expectation came, the questions were outside the job descriptions.

  4. Infact the salary thing sucks! some say indicate in your application the salary you expect from us nkt

  5. I also think recruiters should stop asking people’s age… as long as a candidate is qualified for the position, I believe age is irrelevant unless may be the person looks like s/he is in the retirement age.
    same will be for religion and marital status.

  6. Recruiters need ask questions grounded on past similar job experiences. Design questions that arouse real fast hand knowledge on similar situations that you are hiring for. Questions like assume you are the CEO or bluh of company x, there are riots all over your regional outlets about a particular policy adapted by your company, how would you respond in immediate term? See, this resonates very well with real crisis management situation of every company. Your would be hire should at a given point of their career, have engaged in that experience.

  7. CommentI went 4 an interview last month,and the first com
    on question was,tell me about yourself?Most of the questions asked did not reflect the job I had applied for.

  8. True and on the other hand the position already has a budgeted figure, my thinking is that they should state there offer so that you start your negotiation from there.

  9. Hi,
    That is very true, the question about how much to you want to get paid, it is a complex question because for sure as an employee i will want more n more.

  10. Hello,
    How much are you do you expect from us (employers)
    I think many qualified candidates have lost jobs to this question.
    Let the interviews state the salary meant for the job and the job seekers will make their minds.
    Thanks

  11. Agreed, also recruiters should check these 2 in my opinion

    1. look in the future about real relevance of referees, what percentage of situation do they actually call referees when hiring, and what real valuable info will they get from them say a former lecturer or workmate info is always very biased all act.
    2. Achievements in the CV how will possibly a recruiter double check if what a candidate say or indicate they have achieved actually happened and not a well made up story or even what was achieved by others taken as his/her own.

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