I once told a hiring manager about my first girlfriend breaking up with me.
In a job interview.
For a six-figure position at Hitachi Data Systems.
She’d broken my heart, so I threw myself into cycling.
Started racing. Got into triathlons. Eventually won two of them.
I told the whole story.
The breakup. The bike. The races.
And they hired me.
I didn’t give them some sanitized bullshit about a time I “overcame adversity in a cross-functional environment.”
I told them something REAL.
And in about 2 minutes, they learned I could handle hardship, do difficult things, and turn something lousy into something positive.
Now, that’s not a typical answer.
But here’s the thing:
Most interviews never give a candidate the chance to answer like that.
There are a lot of very good candidates out there. Your questions just don’t let them show it.
“Name a time you dealt with hardship” is a simple question. Most people give you a boring answer. Once in a while, someone like me turns it into a story you remember for years.
Not to toot my own horn too much. But that’s maybe the top 1% of the top 1%.
And you don’t always need that.
If you’re hiring a basic admin, an operations person, or an editor who isn’t designing strategy, you don’t need to be dazzled.
But you do need a way for the right one to stand out from the pile.
The truth is this:
Good questions work both ways.
When a candidate walks out saying “that was one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done,” you’ve just told an A-player what kind of company you run.
Ask better questions, and you attract better people.
So design questions that let people show you what they’ve got. That they’re an A-player. That they fit your company.
That’s exactly what we build at HireUA, for every company and every role.
If you want help designing your interview process, book a call with us:
