Tricky interview questions
Featured in the Proactive Interviewee Skills training manual
By Beverley Williams
Category: Recruitment, Selection and Induction
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail. This age-old maxim applies to many areas of life and is crucial in the interview situation. The vast majority of the possible ‘bouncers’ thrown in an interview can be foreseen, normally with just a few hours of preparation. These include the general tricky questions that could be thrown to anyone at, for example, a selection or promotion interview, and the tricky personal questions that may come up during a coaching or objectives review interview. This training activity examines the types of questions that may arise and suggests step-by-step methods of devising responses to them.
You begin the training activity by introducing the topic and divide tricky interview questions into two broad areas: general tricky questions (GTQs) and personal tricky questions (PTQs). Working with GTQs first, the participants list as many examples as possible. You then introduce them to the preparation questions designed to deal effectively with GTQs, and ask them to do some practical work using these preparation questions and to give feedback to the rest of the group. Moving on to PTQs, you take ideas about the form these could take. You then introduce a step-by-step procedure for dealing with PTQs and ask the participants to use this to guide them as they tackle one or more case studies. A range of options for presenting their findings is offered. You then take one or two key learning points from each person before distributing and commenting on a key learning points handout where appropriate.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to give participants a framework to develop personally appropriate answers rather than supplying standard answers to tricky interview questions.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 10 |
| Typical Duration: | 02:00:00 |
| No of Pages: | 22 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use, as a foundation activity, by trainers with participants who will be interviewees in some form at some point. In practice, this should include all members of the organisation as everyone should attend appraisal, objective-setting and coaching interviews, and possible selection and promotion interviews too.
Download the training activity, Tricky interview questions as featured in the Fenman training manual; Proactive Interviewee Skills