How You Word Your Interview Questions Matters

As a business coach for more than 25 years, I have helped thousands of business owners grow and scale their businesses through the creation of systems and processes and intelligent hiring practices. And one topic that comes up often is how to craft the proper questions for a job interview, while paying attention to the various laws and regulations around discrimination. So today I’ll share some tips and tricks that I teach our clients when it comes to conducting a good interview.

A Word of Caution

Before I share my tips, I want to qualify that what I am about to share is based on my personal experiences from an educational standpoint. I’m not an attorney. I’m a businessperson and business coach who’s played in the world of business for 20-plus years and has learned things along the way. But you always want to check with your legal counsel and your HR compliance team before moving forward with anything.

Be Prepared

When it comes to interviews, many business owners and managers struggle during the actual interview process. You may be swamped at work, and lack the time and attention to sit down and put together a proper list of questions to ask during the interview. Or maybe you get nervous and have a tendency to blabber on when there is an awkward moment of silence. Or maybe you just lack the experience, and show up to the interview full of nerves. Whatever the reason, making the effort to sit down prior to an interview to think about the role and the questions that you would like to ask will go a long way toward making the interview process more productive and efficient. In fact, I recommend that you do this step well before you ever even list the job on the job boards! So that when the day comes, you will have an outline of what you want to know and how you should frame the questions.

Be Weary of Loaded Questions

One of the biggest areas where I see business owners and managers get themselves into trouble is when it comes to asking reflexive questions. Let’s say you ask the following: “Sylvia, tell me about your family. Are you married?  Do you have children?” It seems like such an innocent, innocuous question, and it might very well be. And you may think that it is a great way to build rapport with your interviewee. But if you wouldn’t ask that question of Larry, the IT director candidate, or the new intern straight out of college, it can be viewed as a discriminatory line of questioning. Because the information shared during that question could be used against the person during the interview process. Or it could be perceived as such in the future.

You would be better off saying, “Sylvia, tell me a little bit about yourself outside of work. Tell me a little bit about you as a person.”  And if I’m asking all the different people I’m interviewing at that stage a question like that, that’s a valid, appropriate question.

Be Wary of the Information That Is Shared

And lastly, let’s say that you do all the right things. You prepare a list of non-discriminatory questions prior to the interview, and you stick to your list when you meet with the candidate. But, despite all that, maybe they share personal information with you like their marital status, religious preferences, whether they have children, etc. It is your responsibility to make sure that you do not use that information as part of the determination when making a hiring decision.