Finding a diverse and talented pool of candidates is only the first step to building an effective recruitment strategy. To zero in on the right applicant for a particular position, you have to ask the right questions.
When it comes to a candidate’s competence, credentials don’t tell the whole story. Educational background and past job experiences are also not always the best predictors of success. In fact, many companies are moving away from looking for candidates with degrees in favor of identifying talent that possesses a desired skill set.
The best interview questions help recruiters home in on candidates who have the skills they are looking for by inviting them to speak about three types of proficiencies:
- Hard skills show that a candidate has the technical expertise to get the job done. For example, a marketing candidate might need to understand search engine optimization basics and have a mastery of email marketing tools.
- Soft skills, such as leadership acumen, communication capabilities, and adaptability, show that a candidate has personal qualities or emotional intelligence that can be useful in a variety of roles. A whopping 92% of talent professionals believe soft skills are as important or even more important than hard skills, according to LinkedIn’s 2019 Global Talent Trends report.
- Behavioral intelligence shows how candidates handled past challenging situations, which gives insight into how they may approach future ones.
LinkedIn determined the best interview questions to identify candidates who have the hard skills, soft skills, and behavioral intelligence for some of the most currently in-demand jobs. Use these questions to whittle down your candidate list.
3 interview questions for software engineers
Question #1: What is your quality assurance process for writing code and how do you spot a bug in an application?
Software engineers must be proficient at writing code, but they also need a system for making sure their work is top quality. This question helps you find candidates who have those hard skills and know how to fix a bug once they identify an error.
Question #2: What resources would you recommend to anyone looking to become a better software engineer?
A willingness to learn is a valuable soft skill for software engineers, as technology is rapidly evolving. If candidates can identify conferences, online courses, and professional groups — particularly those they have taken part in — you can deduce that professional development is a priority for them.
Question #3: Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a coworker who was behind schedule on a joint project? How did you handle the situation?
Software engineers will often have to collaborate with other team members when working on different projects. In answering this question, which is designed to assess behavioral intelligence, ideal candidates would share evidence of leadership skills and problem-solving abilities, as well as the knack for working with others.
3 interview questions for salespeople
Question #1: Look around the room and sell me something you see.
Salespeople have to know their products, connect with prospects, and identify customer reservations and overcome them. This question gives candidates the opportunity to show off these hard skills so you can see firsthand if they can handle the job and think on their feet.
Question #2: What do you feel is the most valuable skill a salesperson can have?
With this question, you’ll gain insight into a candidate’s values and know what soft skills they think are most important — and most important to cultivate. You also may learn what the candidate considers his or her biggest strengths to be and if they are doing anything to improve them.
Question #3: Describe a situation where you successfully upsold a customer.
A good salesperson can identify needs customers may not have thought of and convince them to spend more than they intended. When candidates describe an experience in which they have achieved this in the past, you know that they have the behavioral intelligence to identify an upselling opportunity and can inspire enough trust in a customer to take advantage of it.
3 interview questions for registered nurses
Question #1: Walk me through how you would approach your first interaction with a new patient.
This question ensures candidates know which routine medical procedures should take place during an initial visit with a patient and how to perform them — hard skills members of a healthcare team will need. It also gives candidates the opportunity to share how they make patients comfortable.
Question #2: What do you like most about being part of a care team? What do you dislike?
Healthcare professionals often work in teams, making collaboration — a soft skill — a necessity. This question helps recruiters identify candidates who feel comfortable working with others, and have insight into what qualities make a team more effective.
Question #3: Think about the last difficult conversation you had to have with a patient or their family. How did you approach it and how did they react?
Healthcare workers often have to deliver bad news to patients, whether it’s a challenging diagnosis like cancer or a medical procedure that didn’t go as planned. By hearing how a candidate handled such an experience in the past, you can assess their behavioral intelligence and surmise whether they can show empathy while practicing honesty.
3 interview questions for project managers
Question #1: What project management software are you proficient with, and what role do these tools play in your projects?
This question will help you find out whether candidates are comfortable and proficient at using a wide variety of project management tools and software — hard skills necessary for effective project management. The answer to this question will also give you an idea of whether the candidate is on top of evolving technology and knowledgeable about current project management trends.
Question No. 2: You’ve completed a project on time and under budget, but the sponsor isn’t happy with the results. How would you resolve this problem?
Dealing with unhappy clients requires good communication skills and conflict-resolution capabilities. This question helps you find a candidate who understands the importance of these soft skills and knows when and how to apply them. Ideally, this question will elicit a story from a candidate about when they used these skills to their advantage.
Question No. 3: Think about the last time you experienced scope creep on a project. What did you do?
Project managers must know what to do when a client or stakeholder adds new goals or deliverables to a project that may cause it to go over-budget or over deadline. This question helps you find candidates who have the behavioral intelligence to successfully maneuver this situation, and it also highlights a candidate’s communication skills and negotiation capabilities.
3 interview questions for customer assistants/customer care specialists
Question No. 1: Imagine I’m a customer. Describe one of our products or services to me.
Customer assistants and customer care specialists are your customers’ connection to your brand. This question will not only identify candidates that did their research and already know something about your company, but it helps to root out those that can’t communicate with customers in a way that inspires trust in your company — a hard skill for a customer care specialist.
Question No. 2: Imagine a customer or guest comes to you with a problem you’ve never encountered before. What would you do?
This question helps you identify candidates with top-notch problem-solving skills, as well as those who understand when and how to escalate a problem to another level of the organization. These soft skills will help candidates better soothe customers.
Question No. 3: Think about the last time you experienced a misunderstanding at work or in your personal life. What happened, and how did you resolve the problem?
Misunderstandings are bound to happen at times during human interactions. This question helps to determine how a candidate will handle a misunderstanding with a customer and if they have the behavioral intelligence to effectively de-escalate a situation before it grows into a bigger problem. A candidate may even share steps they have taken to prevent misunderstandings in the first place.
Final thoughts
An interview is your greatest opportunity to separate the great candidates from the merely good ones. By being clear about what type of skills you’re looking for — and coming up with the questions that reveal them — you’re better positioned to bring on the candidates your organization needs.
If you need further inspiration for these jobs and others, see our interview guides for questions to identify candidates with the hard skills, soft skills, and behaviors to get the job done.
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