There was a time early in my career when everyone thought a “good” interview question was some kind of brain teaser. No, they didn’t go with the standard “tell me about yourself.” That was just too boring for these creativity contests. Instead, they were asking questions that sounded a lot more like word problems from 10th grade using clocks and apples, then trying to figure out who has the fruit at the end. 

Math was never really my thing so I remember studying these questions relentlessly while looking for a job during the dot com bubble. I couldn’t risk missing out on a great job just because I couldn’t make my way through the brain teasers. 

Thankfully, most companies have moved away from the math into something more applicable to the job. However, most managers still don’t know what to ask during an interview – math problem or not. 

No Interview Training? No Confidence.

Now that I’ve been working in the recruiting industry for awhile, I’m not so surprised that people got away with asking these wild questions for so long. Most people aren’t taught how to distinguish between preferred and mandatory requirements, do an interview, or make hiring choices without bias. According to a survey by SHRM, only 56% of companies provide formal training to hiring managers on conducting interviews. 

Without that training, these managers aren’t feeling as confident as they should when making a decision that impacts someone else’s life (and their own). While there is limited quantitative data on the confidence of hiring managers during interviews, anecdotal evidence and industry surveys suggest a wide range of confidence levels. Glassdoor found that 47% of hiring decision-makers feel confident in their ability to evaluate a candidate in an interview.  What I see? Less than half.

On a positive note, I guess that means we have a lot of room for improvement left when it comes to standardizing interview processes and upskilling hiring managers. Now, that takes money and time which most HR teams don’t have. Better interview questions are an easy place to start. 

Prompt ChatGPT For Unbiased Interview Questions

You can teach your managers to write better interview questions with a good job post in hand. I want to emphasize the importance of that posting because if we don’t know what we’re looking for, there’s no chance we can ask the right questions to qualify those candidates.

First, help the manager establish who will be part of the interview process and assign a topic to each one during the hiring manager intake. For example: I want this person to evaluate technical ability. I want this person to evaluate their presentation and public speaking skills, etc. 

Then, give each person this ChatGPT prompt: 

Give me a list of 30 interview questions that do not break any laws in the United States for someone who has the following in their job posting, then paste the job post in. 

Note: The reason I ask for 30 questions is that I know some percentage of these suggestions will be junk. Encourage managers to cut that 30 down to 10 questions they will ask every candidate that interviews for the role.  Then, ask ChatGPT what biases exist in those questions to either edit or remove questions from there. ChatGPT can’t tell you “I’m being biased” but it can tell you when content is biased. Remember to tailor your questions accordingly and never use the first draft it spits out.

Better Questions Increase Confidence

Giving managers confidence will change the interview dynamic and help candidates feel more confident, too. Often they’re put in these situations to solve math problems instead of talking about how they’ll solve real organizational issues. That’s just not helpful or productive. It’s not most people’s job to work while someone stares and asks questions anyway.

Use AI in this scenario to teach hiring managers about what types of questions to ask and create better, more confident experiences – for hiring managers and candidates. Then, to identify the bias in their questions.

Just don’t ask it for any word problems, ok? 

Read More:

• How AI is Changing the Game in Candidate Screening
• 6+ Ways To Use ChatGPT For Recruiting
• Can ChatGPT Write A Good Job Post?

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