Can You Believe These Interview Questions Still Exist?

[00:00:00] There are going to be some people, though, that are like, we need a second. You just listed off my very favorite interview question. Rude. So I think that we should go through them line by line and talk about why they're not great and give people solutions on a better way to ask these questions. Welcome to Dont Tell Me About Yourself, the podcast where old school hiring meets a modern reality check. I'm Lorna Erickson. And I'm Victoria Gates. And we're the co-founders of Expert Interviewers. Between the two of us, we've got 40 years of hiring experience.

[00:00:28] We've studied interviewing techniques. We've trained thousands of people globally to stop making the same mistakes over and over again. And we've got 340,000 people following us online because apparently everyone has a story about a bad interview. You know the ones. The illegal questions, the 45-minute monologues, showing up late with no apology. So every week, we're tackling the biggest subjects in hiring. We bring real stories, real data, and real talk about how to make interviews actually work for everyone.

[00:00:56] Because great hiring isn't luck. It's a practice skill. So whether you hire, apply, or just love a good interview train wreck, the show is for you. We're talking about the interview questions that just won't die. The ones you've heard a thousand times. The ones you've probably been asked as a candidate and probably or maybe asked yourself as a hiring manager. And the problem isn't that they're just old or overused. A lot of them tell you very little about whether someone can actually do the job.

[00:01:25] We're breaking down why these questions are still hanging around, what the research says actually predicts performance, and what you should be asking instead. And, just for a tease, the one interviewing skill that matters more than any single question. Let's get into it. Let's get through some of these rapid-fire questions. We just got to get them out. So the first one is just tell me about yourself. Gross. Gross. What's your greatest weakness? But Victoria, where do you see yourself in five years? Not here.

[00:01:53] Um, you sell me, I saw it right around the corner, this pen. Or how about if you're an animal, what kind of animal would you be? Or if you had a superpower, what would it be? Woof. So. Big woof. We need to. But first we need to talk about like why these questions just refuse to die. What is it about them that makes them stick around forever and ever and ever?

[00:02:20] My initial thought is that like they get handed down over time and they're just easy. You don't have to think about it. They just are so common. It's like when you Google interview questions, they come up. I know. And, and everyone has asked these before and you've likely been asked them as a candidate before. So it's almost like a hazing ritual. It's like, oh God, I remember having to prepare for tell me about yourself and I'm going to

[00:02:48] make this candidate answer that question too because I had to do it because I had to do it. Yeah. I think that these questions like don't require you to think a lot about what answers you're looking for. So there's just not really a lot of thought that goes into it. So if I'm thinking of the path of least resistance to getting ready for an interview, it's just asking these questions that don't require me to think too much about it in advance. Most hiring managers, if they're new or old, would just sit down and start writing those interview questions first.

[00:03:14] It's just stereotypical, bad, outdated interview questions. Yeah. Now there are going to be some people though that are like, wait a second. You just listed off my very favorite interview question. Rude. So I think that we should go through them line by line and talk about why they're not great and give people solutions on a better way to ask these questions because we might've hurt some feelings. Pick apart the worst interview questions out there. I guess. Twist my arm.

[00:03:43] This is our favorite pastime. It's perfect. You don't have to ask me twice. Like this is my idea of a good time. Most people are like, let's go to a movie. Let's go to a show. No, let's sit around and talk about why these interview questions are so good. So bad and pick them apart. Sounds like a party. So we talked about why people ask this first one is the tell me about yourself. To me, it's just the stereotypical way that many interviewers start interviews because they don't know where else to start. I would agree with that. They don't know where to start. It feels kind of like an icebreaker. It doesn't feel super invasive.

[00:04:13] If you, the second you sit down and you go, so tell me about a time that you did this and this and this and this. Oh, that's not like a really good lead in, right? And we have other suggestions here, but they're really just looking for us all for an introductory question, something where they don't know where to start. It feels easy, but what's it measuring? Like what is this actually measuring? And I've asked hiring managers that before. I'm like, you love this question. Tell me about yourself. Like, what are you trying to measure with the limited amount of time you have with this candidate? What are you trying to measure with that?

[00:04:41] And they're going to say, I just want to hear how they talk about themselves. I just want to hear if they can have a fluid line of thinking and express themselves well. And I'm like, such a fluffy way to evaluate someone. This question misses the point so often because every candidate can start in a different place. Some hiring managers want candidates to start with their professional background. Tell me about your professional background. Other hiring managers ask this question and want to hear about the person's personal life. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. Start with your hobbies.

[00:05:11] Tell me about yourself. You have kids and blah, blah, blah. And it gets into this whole illegal line of questioning. So that's why it misses so much is because candidates can go anywhere with it. And hiring managers don't have an established right answer for it. It's just too fluffy. Right. And most of the time it's giving you information you can't use or it's just giving you information that's not even going to help you at all. So it's really just a waste of time is probably the way we look at this question. As we just say, this is a time waster. It's got to go.

[00:05:39] And luckily for everybody, we have a suggestion for what's better. We do have a much better alternative. So this is one of your favorite questions. Like, Lorna, that's my comfort. Next interview, just try this instead. To Victoria's point earlier, it does feel weird to jump into an interview and be like, tell me about a time when blah, blah, blah. You don't want to go in interrogator mode, but there is a nice, polite way to ease into the conversation and says, hey, you're currently working at XYZ Company.

[00:06:08] What do you like most about that role? Isn't that a nice way to start off? It's like, I can talk about what I like. It's like a hug. It feels like a warm workplace acceptable hug. HR approved, warm workplace hug. Yes. Another way to look at that is that, hey, it looks like the last role that you were working at was XYZ Company. Tell me about what your responsibilities were there. It has direction. It has intention. It flows into the interview.

[00:06:35] The candidate is not going to talk for 10 minutes about where they were born and what their best friend's name was or who knows where people are going to start with that. Instead, you have a specific direction of where you're going and it can relate to the rest of the interview that you hopefully have planned out. Yeah. Okay. All right. What about greatest weakness? Why the people ask it? God, there's been a lot of reasons. I've asked hiring managers, why do you ask the question, what's your biggest weakness? And they typically say, I just want to see if they're going to be vulnerable. Sometimes. Or reflective.

[00:07:05] Sometimes they're like, I want to know if they can self-reflect. Yes. Yes. Self-reflect. Vulnerability. And again, those are all soft skills that can be measured in a much different, better way. I also feel like it's just a stereotype kind of question that people are like, I need to ask this. Well, and that's to me why it misses so much is because you're going to get canned answers most of the time. Like this is one that they're going to prepare sort of a cookie cutter, perfect, basic answer. And that's not a knock on the candidate.

[00:07:32] Good on them for preparing to answer the dumb interview question. Right. You know, like that's good. But you're not going to get valuable information that you actually need. So that's a big miss. You're typically not going to get something of substance. It's going to be a fluffy response that really doesn't give you anything to go off of. I want to talk about a better alternative for this. But before I can do that, I feel like I need to change the reason why people should ask a question related to this.

[00:08:00] Because what we just talked about is that that hiring managers are looking for vulnerability, self-awareness. Instead, I feel like they should be changing their reasoning to how can I better support this person if they're going to work with me. Ways to do that is to identify what is the candidate wanting to improve. If we need to ask a question related to weaknesses or areas of improvement, sometimes if we must, then I will say, hey, I know that you listed some references here on your resume.

[00:08:28] When we call them, what will they say are areas that they were trying to help you to improve? And it kind of takes them out of their own head. And when I was working with my manager before, we were trying to get me more experience in XYZ. And that, to me, lets me know as a hiring manager, one, can I support them in that? Is that a motivator of theirs that our job needs to have so that they can continue to gain the experience that they need? There's so many good nuggets of information you can get out of there that are far more valuable

[00:08:55] than is this person vulnerable and willing to self-reflect. Because we can test that in other ways. Well, and since we think references are a little bit the security blanket of interviewing, one other suggestion I have is what was the last piece of constructive feedback you got from your manager at XYZ Company? That, to me, is also another effective way without throwing out references. If you've come over to the side of references are not needed, that might be another effective way to get the information from the candidate.

[00:09:25] That's a little bit more, again, anytime you're putting them in the position where they're having to say what someone else said, they're going to be truthful. Versus generally just saying, what do you think your biggest weakness is? Their opinions. That's a therapy question. That's an opinion. That's a guess. But saying, what feedback did you get? What would your reference say? Like, they're going to be like, oh, they might check or, oh, they might know this person. I better answer truthfully. So that's also going to get you a truthful answer. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:53] For the record, sometimes I have asked that question knowing that I would never call the references. Like, it just kind of helps to get the candidate out of their mind a little bit and into someone else's. But I love the way that you phrased that question, too. Okay. So let's talk about one that really irks me personally. Where do you see yourself five years from now? And from my perspective, the reason that managers are asking this is like they're wanting the candidate to express their interest and they're concerned about, is this candidate as invested in us as we are in them by hiring them?

[00:10:22] And so they want to know forward thinking, where are you at with this? Where are you at in terms of us and growth? And that's just a reassurance for them, I feel like. Yeah. I agree. It's like, please, please tell me what I want to hear. Not that I know what that is yet, but I want you to tell me what I want to hear. And why do you think this one misses? Because it's wishful thinking. It's like, yeah, let's go to fantasy land here. They know the answer you want to hear and they're going to tell you the answer you want to hear. So it's going to miss because of that.

[00:10:52] And it's going to miss because it's generally wishful thinking. So it's just not going to give you anything of substance. Yeah. Gosh, it is well said. And it's just such a waste of time. Now, I feel like our better alternative for this one is going to be a little bit disappointing because it's not an easy, fast fix. But when done well, you're going to get all the information you need.

[00:11:14] And the way to do this is by being extremely patient and taking time to understand their actual motivators. And that is not list your top three motivators. That's not going to get it. Instead, you have to go through their past jobs and just be like, what did you like most about that job? What didn't you like about that job? What did you delegate in that job? Because it wasn't your favorite. How are you paid? What did you like about that? And you'll find out, are they leaving their current job? Because there's no opportunity for growth.

[00:11:44] And their growth is defined as salary or as managing others or managing entire projects on their own. If you're patient and you pick up that information slowly, you'll get all the information you need to identify whether or not your job and company align with what that candidate really wants moving forward. Right. Right. You have to take little pieces throughout the interview and add it up to find if this is a fit for them in five years versus asking them, do you see yourself here in five years?

[00:12:13] Like no candidate. Yeah. No candidate is going to say, no, actually, I don't. Like, you're just not. Like, it's so, yes, totally agree. Well, back to the pen example, the sell me. Why do people ask this one from your perspective? Yeah. Yeah. Any question that's related to like putting them on the spot to be like, sell me this. You know, it's like, let's go. Actually, when you look up this question online, like I see the answers that candidates are supposed to give.

[00:12:40] They're supposed to be asking a lot of questions, you know, to prove their sales experience. I've seen people ask this question for non-sales related jobs. And I'm like, it doesn't even make sense for sales jobs, let alone a job that's not related to sales. And their excuse for asking this question is because they want to see if the candidate could work cross-functionally with teams. Like, can they clearly communicate themselves? Can they identify a problem?

[00:13:08] I'm like, there's so much of a better way to do that. Sometimes they just want to throw them off, too. I think like immersing someone in a situation and having them become like a character, essentially, like it spices up the interview. So sometimes I feel like people are like, yeah, I just like to see if they get nervous. Like, how do they handle pressure? And like this and that. Okay, sure. I can somewhat see how that might get you some of that. But you said it.

[00:13:34] There is direct answers of how to do this and literal scripts of telling people how to answer this. So why it's not going to work is because candidates know about this. And it doesn't mean come up with a different sell me or sell me this pen. And we've got just a better way of like, you can't fake the experience you've actually had. But you can pretend to be something you're not in a theoretical hypothetical situation of selling a pen, which is what they'll do with the script. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It is.

[00:14:04] It is way overused. Don't think of another one that's like it. Yeah. Like, I'm like, oh, now they're going to be like, what's the next? Sell me your pen. Because yeah, if sales is important, use it. If this is a sales job and selling is important, they need to have had that experience or at least have a natural inclination towards it. Like, even if you're an entry level grad and they're looking for a sales job, like you might have sold magazines. You might have done college house painting back in the day. Like you might have sold a service, Girl Scout cookies, Boy Scout.

[00:14:34] You worked at the buckle. Exactly. Like, yeah, some type of sales experience. So instead, just ask them about a time that they had to sell a product or service that they weren't familiar with. Right. Like if they don't have examples, then they're just not a fit. Right. Like putting them on the spot to sell an item isn't going to be as effective as actually learning about the situation and then hearing how did they navigate that situation? How did they actually do it? Not hypothetical land. Right. Making them prove it.

[00:15:00] And you gave a great example if it's for a sales related role. That's the better alternative. If it's not for a sales related role and you're wanting to ask this question, then you need to clearly define why you're asking it. And if it's to identify their communication or their ability to work under pressure, you're still asking the wrong question. Let's go back and find a job related situation where they had to work under pressure or they had to clearly communicate and we can actually get there faster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:30] So the last one was the animal, animal one. And most of the time, I think this is just for fun, like to get a laugh, to chuckle, for entertainment value, for curiosity's sake, just because you read an article online and it told you that if they say wolf, that's the right answer. So you're just trying to integrate that into your process. So oftentimes, like why people ask it is because of those reasons.

[00:15:58] And yes, that's me criticizing you because I do think you're doing it because of that. That's another why that I've heard of why people ask, like, what's your favorite animal? Is they think the candidate is going to have fun with it. Oh, good call. And I'm like, they think it's fun for the candidate. Candidates, is it fun for you? Let us know in the comments. Yeah. My guess is absolutely not. Candidates are coming in prepared to talk about their work-related experience, what they like about their jobs, what they're able to do, what they've proven they've done, the

[00:16:28] goals that they've achieved. They did not prepare to come in and talk about the reason why they would be a dog. Who knows what? So candidates do not like these questions. They are not fun. And I would like that validation in the comment section. If there is a candidate that can prove me wrong, please do. But I have yet to meet a candidate that was like, oh, my God, it was my favorite. I am so glad I got asked this. And then when they don't get the job because they said dog and not wolf, boy, you're going

[00:16:57] to have some pissed off candidates. Well, and is that defensible, right? Is that a defensible reason to disqualify someone because they said they were a dog, not a wolf? Like, I'm pretty sure not. So what's tough about this is like, there's just so many reasons not to ask it. And there's so many reasons why it misses another time waster. Is there an alternative for this one? Nope, there is not. Nope, nope, nope. It's best to completely eliminate all questions like this.

[00:17:25] We call them non-qualifying questions. Also brain teaser questions, like anything like that. You can call it whatever you want. How many potholes are in the city? Like all those types of questions. Anytime one pops into your mind as an interviewer and you're like, this might be fun. Write it down for a dinner party. Or after the person gets hired. I mean, sure, you're at lunch. How to lunch. You want to ask a silly question? Go for it. By all means. Yes. And hopefully that's a good, fun conversation starter. Otherwise, they're going to think you're super weird.

[00:17:54] But I write it down and use it for something else other than an interview. And there's no other alternative to it. You don't use them. And instead, you're just asking questions that actually have proven right answers to them and making candidates explain past challenging work-related experiences and likes and dislikes from their previous job. Totally. So at the end of the day, like everybody has a favorite bad interview question and a reason it's not bad when they ask it, right? Like that's the key.

[00:18:23] So if these are the bad ones, if these ones don't work, should we look at what does work and maybe some of the research behind some of the stuff that works? I feel like that's a good place to start. There was a study from the Journal of Applied Psychology that looked at different ways companies evaluate candidates. And structured interviews came out as one of the strongest predictors of job performance.

[00:18:47] So what really stood out basically in the research is that the difference between structured and unstructured interviews is that candidates who interviewed with a structured interview performed twice as well as those who didn't. So look, like you don't need some complicated interview system, but it does mean you need a plan. And you need to have questions that are set up to assess candidates, ask consistent questions, and that have a right answer.

[00:19:13] Because at the end of the day, it's two people having conversation, and the difference that we see a lot of times is the structure to that and the consistency to that. So it's not about like the perfect interview question. It's just about building a better, sustainable interview process. Yes, the structured interviews are the single strongest predictor of job performance of any other selection method that's been tested. So we know it works. It's just it takes some intention to get there. We know that the structure works.

[00:19:43] But here's the thing. We focused on interview questions here, but those aren't actually the real secret. The best interviewers don't ask better first questions. They're the ones that ask better follow-up questions. Lorna's favorite topic, follow-up questions. It is. It is one of my favorite topics. We can make interview guides for companies in a blink of an eye.

[00:20:10] It's something that we're really good at, identifying what the companies need, working through soft skills, coming up with good past tense challenging interview questions, motivational fit questions. And if that's it, and if we put that interview guide in front of a hiring manager, they're still going to fail because they weren't ready and prepared to recognize when they needed to ask the follow-up questions. That's the art of interviewing is being able to recognize when to ask follow-up questions and what kinds to ask.

[00:20:39] I know we have sort of a few key items that we help people to understand some of those things just to start off, right? Yeah. Because it can be a little intimidating to know when the right time is and what you're actually looking for from it. Yeah. And I think the biggest one that comes to my mind is like asking people to prove their experience, right? So oftentimes, we mentioned earlier with a lot of the questions, you're going to get canned answers or you're going to get generic answers, something pretty vague.

[00:21:06] And the number one follow-up question always is, can you walk me through a specific situation? That one fits almost anywhere, anytime, any place. So if you have one that you remember, like that's an easy one to get you specifically what you're needing to evaluate their answer. That is our favorite follow-up question to make candidates prove it. And Victoria just listed a few of them.

[00:21:34] And the words that you're going to listen for from a candidate when you know you need to use this is when a candidate says, Well, usually I or typically this happens or I think or in my opinion, it's best if you use your leadership abilities to blah, blah, blah. If there's no concrete example that they're referring to, ask them for one. They need to be able to prove their experience by talking about an actual person, an actual project, and they paint that picture in your brain.

[00:22:02] So that question, can you walk me through a specific situation, is going to give you that proof of if they can overcome challenges that are going to be happening in your job. Absolutely. And then there's the we factor where if they're speaking about a situation, but they're saying, well, we did this and we did that and the team did this or the team did that.

[00:22:23] And in that situation, similar follow-up question, instead of you saying, can you walk me through a specific situation, you say, can you help me understand your role in that situation? So when you hear a we or they're talking about a group because you're not hiring the team, right? You're not hiring we. You're hiring that one person. So you just want to understand their specific actions. Yeah.

[00:22:45] And in case that interviewer is listening right now and they're like, wait a second, I like it when candidates use the word we because then I know that they're a team player. If you want to identify if somebody is a team player, you ask different questions that are going to specifically find that out. We can't just generally hope that a candidate uses a magical number of we's in their interview and that's how you determine that. That's leaving it to chance and that's silly.

[00:23:09] So instead, when you are looking to identify a specific skill and a candidate continues to use we, fantastic. Just push them one step further. Can you walk me through your specific role in that example? Yeah. And then the last area that we have is more about like when you don't have enough information. These are the most common. Like this one happens all the time. And the inclination that we see from interviewers is to be like, well, it ended up being good, right? Or I bet you fixed it. Like you want to believe that. And I want to believe that, right?

[00:23:39] Like we want to. But we need to take a step back and realize that by doing that, we are leading the candidate to a specific outcome. And we're living in fantasy land yet again. And instead, you just have to say like, so what happened next? If you need something to fill the airtime, that's what you say. You don't need to say like, that turned out. But it sounds like it worked out. Yeah. Because that's just not going to give you an accurate answer. Because if I'm the candidate, I'm like, yeah, you know what? Yeah, it did.

[00:24:09] Everything ended up working out. Thanks so much for saying that, you know? Exactly. Like we're not going to go back. What candidate in this world is going to be like, actually, it didn't. Like it didn't. No one. Oh, that's such a good point. A common mistake that I see here that I need to throw out is that when you ask good behavioral past tense challenging situations that are work related to candidates, you will actually hear times that they didn't turn out well.

[00:24:34] And a leading question that interviewers need to avoid here is saying, well, what did you learn from that? And you're assuming that the candidate learned something. So they're going to be like, quick, quick, quick, make something up. Like I learned something from it. And instead, it's like, no, were you put into that situation again? And then you as the interviewer gets to decide, did they actually learn something? Did they change their actions based on the last negative end result?

[00:25:00] So anytime you're stuck, recap what you heard and then just say, what happened next in that situation? Yep. It's an easy way to get out of it without leading them and continuing the interview to move forward. We're not saying every classic interview question is dead, right? Like we're not saying that. It's generally maybe how you're asking it, the method in which you're going about it, the wording. Because there's questions worth keeping. There are. There are questions worth keeping.

[00:25:28] And to keep it as simple as possible, if you're going into an interview this week or next week as a hiring manager, you want to be able to ask questions like, can you tell me about a time when? These are classic behavioral questions that put candidates in past tense, challenging work-related situations. And then the second one are questions that sound like, tell me, what did you like about that? And that could be talking about the role itself. Tell me about what you liked about the bonus structure or the compensation or the management techniques. Yeah.

[00:25:57] And then what aspects didn't align. So asking both sides of preferences, likes and dislikes. Those are, those can become classic questions. And I think they should be because they're going to, they're going to help you maximize your time with candidates. So are we saying you can never ask, tell me about yourself again? Not necessarily. But if you do, like we're cringing. We're cringing. Yeah, we're going to be cringing. Yeah, because a good interview isn't about collecting a bunch of interesting questions.

[00:26:26] It's about collecting evidence. What did this person actually do? What challenges have they faced and overcome that are similar to your job? And what was their specific contribution to that? That's like the takeaway from the whole episode. Stop trying to find the perfect interview question and just get better at interviewing. Ask questions that are connected to the job, listen to the answer, and then follow up when you need more.

[00:26:51] And make sure that you're actually learning something that you can use to make a hiring decision that can be, you know, defensible. Yeah. And please, for the love, retire the animal question. Unless you're hiring for like a zoo, I guess, we might allow it then. We might. Yeah. All right. Until next time, everyone. Happy interviewing.