I manage a program and facility for the DOD. I have two full time with benefits job openings. We advertised it in house only so there are only three prospects. The jobs are customer service positions with retail sales.
One of the applicants already works here so it will be a promotion for her if selected.
I need a list of questions to ask of each prospect in the interviews. There will be a selection panel of myself and two other managers.
I have been a manager for five years but have done very little hiring as I have been lucky with past employees. The hiring process is the least favorite part of my position.
Thank You for any help.
From the other side of the desk, I found trying to answer these questions helpful in preparing for interviews:
100 potential interview questions:
http://career-advice.monster.com/job-interview/interview-questions/100-potential-interview-questions/article.aspx
Think about the skills and personality required to do well in those jobs. Now, think about questions which will force the candidates to show you that they have the ability and the personality to do the job. The ones I tend to ask are to see if they understand what they studied in school at a reasonably deep level, and since I hire people who have to know how to program if they have run into the kinds of problems you run into in doing a big job. For you, it might be exploring how they interact with people - what they did for the most difficult customer they ever faced, what they like to see in customers, stuff like that. You can also present them scenarios to see how they would do the job.
No softballs like greatest strengths and weaknesses. Make them show you their strengths by how they interact with you (and if they can’t do a good job with you as the customer for them selling themselves they’re not going to do well with anyone) and how they solve the problems you give them.
I also look for people who are up for the interview. An interview is like acting, and you have to come across. Someone who can’t do that in this obvious situation won’t be able to do it with customers either.
I’m not thrilled with the 100 question list precisely because some of them will study it. To see how they will really do, knock them out of their safety zone.
One question I was asked once in an interview is “What is something about yourself that people find surprising?” The person who interviewed me later told me she gets some very interesting and informative answers. She also said a question she likes is something along the lines of “What would you do in a situation where you didn’t actually know what to do?”
It seems like you may know some of your candidates already which makes the interview process even more difficult and I don’t envy you. One thing that I’ve always found interesting is how little attention people pay to their own professional development, except for a promotion obviously. But maybe a question or two about aspects of other jobs that they would like to have? (like more travel, interact with more departments or companies)
Similar to Voyager, I favor questions about them personally. We are a small company and how you will fit in and interact is very important. So I actually like non-sequitur questions like:
How fast have you ever been in a car? What sports teams do you or your family follow? What was your best trip or vacation? GoBots, Transformers, Cabbage Patch, My Little Pony, GI Joe, or Matchbox? I don’t care if they’ve only ever been 55mph, don’t follow sports at all, or have never had the funds to travel outside of the county but if they don’t have an anecdote/story/opinion about what they want to do in the future, they are going to be boring people. But non-interview softballs like these often get the conversation going and take about a minute total.