How do you structure interview questions about a candidates background?

Question

I usually start interviews for technical candidates by having them tell me about their background and prior work experience. I do this for two reasons:

• I want them to talk about things they know well so that they'll loosen up, and get more comfortable with the interview, so when I grill them on technical questions, I'll get an accurate measure of their technical ability, not a measure of how nervous they are.
• I want to find out how good a fit they'll be for the rest of the team, and what sort of person they'll be to work with, based on what they say about their prior work experiences.

To the last point, I've started asking the candidate to tell me their 2 or 3 most recent teams: what they did there, what they liked, and what they disliked. I find this reveals more than I possibly would have expected about a candidates character, and their approach to things like conflicts and obstacles in the workplace.

However, I find that as soon as I get someone talking about their background, it ends up taking way longer than is useful, and it's quite hard to steer them back on track.

How do you structure interview questions around a candidates background so that you extract the pieces that are interesting to you, without having it consume the entire interview?

Answer 1

Many bigger companies (Microsoft, etc) tend to ask anecdotal questions. For example, I was asked questions like:

1. Describe a time when you worked in a team environment, and there was an aspect that you particularly enjoyed and why.

2. Describe a time when you were approached by an upset customer. Why were they upset? How you deal with the problem, and was the customer satisfied?

It was a while ago, so I'm mainly filling in gaps here.

They even video taped me, not sure if that's relevant to you though as it certainly didn't make me feel overly comfortable.

Nick

Answer 2

Keep the questions short and pointed.

For example:

• "in your last few teams, what type of role or specialty did you find yourself most interested in, or gravitating towards?" (I like that question myself).

• "Are you more comfortable in a team based environment, or working on projects by yourself? And why?" (Old, but excellent question)

• "What are some benefits or knowledge you have received some of the teams you have worked with in the past?" (could be a little longer answer, but a good question)

There are many more. I would brainstorm a few questions ahead of time, and keep a question list handy.

Answer 3

I think the general rule of thumb for this is to ask for a specific instance in their background, or a specific task they accomplished, etc. Make each question short, and have one topic on which it's focused.

If you keep the questions specific (ie: "Tell me about one time you..."), it will help prevent them from using up your time. Focus your question on a single concept per question, and avoid the very open ended questions.

You can ask a specific question that gives them a lot of freedom in answering. For example, "Tell me about a time when you had to do ...."? or something like that. That should provide you the ability to control their comfort level a bit better, but still manage the time required to answer the question. Asking 5 questions like this is better than saying "What were the last 5 times you...?", since you can control the pace, and if you decide after 2 it's time to move on, you have that control.

Answer 4

I like to talk informally with the person, instead of having them answer a specific question about their background, because it can be much more revealing of their personality and working style.

So I usually just put a time cap on it. "We have an hour today, so I'd like to spend 30 minutes talking about your background and the other 30 writing some code. So...tell me about the type of stuff you've been working on."

Answer 5

Being more focused can help.

The questions others given here look like they are based on a behavioral method of questioning, questions like:

• Describe a time on any job that you held in which you were faced with problems or stresses that tested your coping skills.
• Give me an example of a time in which you had to be relatively quick in coming to a decision.

These questions are based on the STAR method. There are several online pages listing generic examples of these types of questions. You could choose to use positive questions first to ease the candidate into the interview before hitting them with the tougher sounding questions.

STAR Method

Situation: give an example of a situation you were involved in that resulted in a positive outcome

Task: describe the tasks involved in that situation

Action: talk about the various actions involved in the situation’s task

Results: what results directly followed because of your actions

http://web.mit.edu/career/www/guide/star.html