When candidates talk about great accomplishments, how can you tell who has personal initiative and who just happened to be on a successful team or followed smart orders? Answer: digging deep with follow-up questions.
For example, if you’re looking to see if your candidate is an innovator, you say something like, “Tell me about a time you developed a value-added project.” Anyone will be able to talk about a project they were involved in, but you want to know if you’re talking to the brains behind the operation.
Someone who’s learned how to present themselves in an interview will probably give good answers to behavior-based questions. But the deeper into the details you go, the harder it will be for them to keep that up. But if candidates are talking about big accomplishments that they’re proud of, they’ll continue giving thoughtful answers and they’ll stay confident no matter how many details you ask for.
A good rule of thumb is to hit all of the who, what, when, where and how questions. For example, “What did you do?” “What did you say?” “Why did you say it?” “How did you do it?” Soon you’ll start to see how well the answers hold up.
