Two Questions NOT to Ask Job Candidates in an Interview!

Over four decades I have helped employers improve their hiring practices, especially the hiring interview. Research has been available since the 1980s showing the best ways to interview and what interview questions actually separate good candidates from the rest. And guess what, the best questions aren't (and NEVER have been) “What are your three Strengths?” or “What are your Three Weaknesses?” (3S&3W) In fact, I believe those two questions are perhaps two of the VERY WORST questions to ask a candidate during a job interview. Why? Let me give you three reasons…

Reason #1 – They Lack Focus - Any good interview question should be targeted to efficiently gather information about the candidate’s ability to perform the job. That means assessing whether the person has the skills that YOU NEED in that position. The 3S&3W questions are much too broad, vague and open-ended. They leave it completely up to the candidate to choose what to talk about, and that can end up in a great deal of wasted time. The candidate may have exactly the skills you need, but if they didn’t happen to talk about the right strength, you could be missing an excellent employee. At the same time, they may tell you what you want to hear, but really can’t do it. It is left as too much of a guessing game. You need to find out if they can DO the things that you need them to DO, and 3S&3W just don’t deliver consistently on that count.

Reason #2 – They are Easily Rehearsed (contrary to popular belief) - This is especially true if the candidate has a career coach who tells them to research your organization and choose strengths that you need according to your company website or even just based on the actual job posting. The candidate knows what you want and just tells you what you want to hear. And do you know how many articles are online about how to answer 3S&3W? I just googled it and got 693 million hits! 3S&3W fail again to deliver.

Reason #3 – Saying is NOT the Same as Doing - Just because a candidate says they have a strength in a certain area does not mean that they actually have that strength, AT ALL! You need to ask for specific real life experiences, not just a list of three strengths. You should be pursuing behaviors you need, not a list of random claims.

You may be thinking: "Well Doctor, if these questions are so useless, why are the 3S&3W questions so popular among managers?" And believe me, many managers LOVE these two questions! From my discussions with managers over 40 years of consulting, their popularity comes down to two primary reasons:

1.????3S&3W have a mystique about them. They allow interviewers to think of themselves as a bit of a psychoanalyst (a modern day Sigmund Freud if you will) and able make an “interpretation” about the candidate. 3S&3W make the interviewer feel powerful and able to make judgments, even though they are most likely faulty judgments about candidates. And, as a licensed therapist, I can tell you managers haven’t a clue how to interpret a candidate’s response to these questions, even if the questions were useful, which they aren't.

2.???3S&3W allow managers to hire people they find outwardly appealing. This is the more dangerous of the two reasons for their popularity, because it results in poor choices for the company and the candidate. If I ask vague questions, that generate bad data, it justifies hiring who I initially “like” which simply perpetuates bias and illegal discrimination, and poor hiring practice in general! In the absence of good data, people choose who they "like."

BTW, there is a right way to interview and it has been around for a long time. Go here to learn more.

Dr. Larry Pfaff is a educator, consultant, career and executive coach who has spent a lifetime helping thousands of people live more fulfilling lives. Learn more at www.dhirubhai.net/in/drlarrypfaff/ or?www.pfaffconsulting.com or contact him at [email protected]

Copyright 2022 Lawrence A. Pfaff