Interviewers: Stop Asking Multipart Questions

I’ve always loved Jon Stewart’s comedy. Truly brilliant. But as a talk show host, he has an odd habit: When he interviews guests, he will often ask them two, three, or even four questions at once.

“When did you finally decide to do that, and what inspired you in the first place? And did it end up being as great as you hoped, or were there parts that didn’t measure up?”

If you watch those clips, you’ll see that his guests typically answer only one of his questions, and it’s usually the final one. The other questions, and those unrealized answers, fade into nothingness.

In candidate interviews, asking a multipart question isn’t just quirky. It’s actually problematic, for several reasons:

• The candidate only tells you part of the story. Because they can’t possibly retain every part of your question in their working memory, they focus on the part where they have the most compelling response.
• You lose track of what you’ve covered. Typically, the candidate fails to answer one key part of your question, but you’ve already mentally “checked the box” because you did, in fact, ask it.
• You end up skewing the candidate’s response, because you revealed your follow-up questions in advance. They alter what story they share because they already know what details you want to probe.
  

Bottom line: It’s essential to remove multipart questions from your repertoire. But how?

The first part is knowing that it’s happening. If there’s any doubt, invite a colleague to observe you in action.

The second step is understanding why you are doing it and applying the right remedy based upon that trigger. Here are the three main triggers I see for multipart questions and the remedy for each:

1.  “My mind is racing. There are so many things I want to know about this story, and I’m afraid I will forget.”

Remedy: Take notes (one of many reasons to do so!). The simple act of writing down what the candidate says keeps you “on top” of the content, so that you can ask your questions one at a time.

2. “This candidate is pretty talkative. I’d better get all of my questions in quickly, while I have the chance.”

Remedy: Insert yourself into the conversation early and often. Get the candidate used to your (brief) interjections. Leverage your enthusiasm and deep curiosity to interrupt when you need to.

3. “I sometimes get lost in candidates’ stories. Maybe when I ask my question, I can throw in a couple of follow-ups so that the candidate knows where to go.”

Remedy: Use the following heuristic to ensure you’ve covered the essentials: what did the candidate do, how did they do it, and how big of a deal was it (that is, the result or consequence vs. some benchmark).

Interviews are all about generating a dialogue. That means asking one question at a time. Keep your questions simple, and let the data flow!

This post was originally published on LinkedIn.

Jordan Burton has 17 years of experience as an executive assessor and interviewing trainer, working with top VC/PE investors and high-growth startups to help them hire the best of the best. He has trained thousands of founders, leaders, and investors on hiring and interviewing skills. He leads Talgo’s business development initiatives, managing relationships with Sequoia Capital, TH Lee, Palantir, Scale AI, and over 50 venture-backed startups.