Best-Fit Interview Questions To Uncover The Candidates

The interview is the most time-consuming part of the recruitment process. According to some business statistics, recruiters spend nearly 66% of their hiring time on interviews.

Perfect Reliability Questions For Interview: Choose the Best-Fit Candidate in 30 Minutes

As a recruiter, you have to remember that the company’s and candidate’s time is priceless. That’s why you have to make these interviews shorter, but at the same time cover as many questions as possible. And the best advice here is to prepare your interview script. 

Ready interview scripts can minimize awkward pauses, give you crucial information about a candidate, and allow you to find the best match in the fastest way. 

The specific scripts you create will vary based on the positions you’re hiring for. For insights into crafting a comprehensive job description, explore our article on the Business Office Coordinator role. We believe there are types of questions that are must-have in every interview. So let’s check on 15 best-fit interview questions together!

Questions for a perfect interview script

1. Tell me about yourself. Describe your character in under 30 words?

This is probably the most common job fit interview question. The answer to this question allows analyzing the candidate’s levels of confidence and composure through voice and body language. Such fit questions also help us find out if a candidate is self-aware. Self-aware people are typically open to feedback and professional development. 

2. What one skill would you like to improve, and what’s your plan for doing so?

A more creative way to phrase that ‘biggest weakness’ cliché allows your candidate to show how they want to grow – rather than focusing on their flaws. We ask these reliability questions for interview to see if candidates are aware of their weaknesses and whether they have strategies to tackle them. 

3. If to summarize your experience, how do you think what tasks are easier to accomplish for you? What are you good at? What are your strengths? 

These fit questions help us know if a candidate's skills, competencies, and experiences match what they need for the open role. 

4. Tell me something you have taught yourself in the last six months? 

The answer will reveal how motivated candidates are to self-improvement, which, in the end, will significantly affect your company's future development. 

5. What has helped you finish an important task when you had no energy to work? How do you motivate yourself to do complex or boring tasks?

We need to know if a candidate will be driven to do a good job and what motivates him. These are essential job fit interview questions because it allows one to understand a candidate and gauge better if his motivations fit your company's culture. 

6. Can you tell me about a time you lacked the skills or knowledge to complete an assignment? How did you solve this task? 

These behavioral job fit questions reveal details about a candidate’s work style (teamwork, problem-solving, communication, etc.). You want to know how a candidate responds to change, faces challenges, approaches learning opportunities, and whether they can problem-solve.

7. What challenges are you looking for in this position? How do you see your further career development?

We’re trying to understand through these job fit interview questions if a candidate’s ambitions match well with the opportunities we can provide. If the candidate describes ambitions the company could never realistically fulfill, we will be concerned they will want to leave too soon after being hired.

8. Is there a time when you had a disagreement with a manager or a colleague? How did you address the situation?

These are cool team fit interview questions. The candidate’s answer will show their level of emotional intelligence, how they handle conflict, highlight aspects of their personality, and flag if they might provoke any future problems within your team. Take note of their tone as well as the content of their answer.

9. What do you know about our company?

Why is it important to ask this question? Of course, we don’t want or expect a candidate to memorize all information from the website, but we expect them to understand who we are, what we do, our products and services, and what they can do to enhance the company. We also want to find out if a candidate is enthusiastic about the prospect of working for us. 

10. What kind of environment do you like best? How would you describe your ideal office environment?

Use these interview questions for team fit. Finding a candidate fitting in with your company's culture and working conditions is essential. Understanding the environment, they feel most comfortable working in will help you decide whether they are a good match.

11. What is the most important thing for you in a new company? What do you pay attention to? How do you make your decision between two job offers? 

Here, we want to uncover the candidate’s motivations for the job and to understand is it salary, location, brand, team fit, or job title that is most important to a candidate? We can also use this question to screen bogus candidates who’ve only applied because they want to test the market or negotiate a better salary with their current employer.‍

12. What are your salary expectations?

We need to find out if candidates' salary expectations match the salary they have in mind for this role. If their expectations are too high for the budget available, this could put them out of the running. On the other hand, if their expectations are too low, this could leave us questioning if they are suitable for the role, regarding their experience level.

13. Why is there a gap in your work history?

Usually, a gap is a red flag. Here we need to understand whether a candidate put the time to good use. For example, did they take a course to develop their skill set or travel to broaden their horizons? Or, on the flip side, did they waste their time by not actively job seeking.

14. Tell me something about yourself that’s not on your CV.

Remember, you’re hiring a person – not a robot. If you think that this point isn't worthy for job fit questions, it's not true. Try to understand their personality better by asking about their life outside the office and their hobby. It will give you a sense of how they’d get along with other team members.

15. Do you have any questions for me?

The perfect final question allows the candidate to assess whether the job is the right fit for them, too. It can also highlight what their priorities are – whether that’s culture and compensation or growth potential and learning opportunities.

So this is the script that works the best for me, and I’m glad to share it with you. As you plan your next interview, you can try to sprinkle a few from this list to diversify your script and see if it enhances your hiring process. 

What is another way to speed up recruitment process?

Many manage this process using emails, phone calls, employee calendars, or text documents. Much information is constantly lost, and it isn't easy to manage. To speed up the process, you can use recruitment software, such as Axterior.

Axterior is an online recruitment platform that automates the entire hiring process. Track all your conversations with candidates in one place no matter where you chat - e-mail, Whatsapp, Viber, or Telegram. You don’t have to switch between tabs and apps and can use this time for more significant tasks.

Enhance your interview scheduling with Axterior special feature, focusing on candidate convenience and reducing tedious back-and-forth communication and double-booking.

Conclusion

Thus, even if you have successfully interviewed thousands of applicants, filled hundreds of vacancies, and feel confident in communicating with any candidates, be sure to prepare for the interview. Use the interview scripts to save your and candidate’s time. Develop team fit interview questions to accelerate the process for the recruitment department. To learn more about addressing common obstacles in the hiring process, check out our article on common challenges recruiters face and how to overcome them.

We hope these job fit interview questions and answers to them will assist you in making a right choice.

And remember, job interviewing, like any other skill, is something you can continuously improve without a limit.