The Art of Asking Follow-Up Questions, Part 1
One of the most common mistakes I see inexperienced interviewers make is building an extensive, scripted list of questions, and then sticking rigidly to it during the interview. Some inexperienced interviewers even hurry the candidate along through their answers to make sure they are able to get through the whole list of questions. I know, because I used to make these mistakes, reasoning that this constituted prepared, disciplined interviewing.
There are several reasons why this approach is flawed. Perhaps most obvious is that rigidly sticking to a long list of questions creates a poor experience for the candidate, because it subjects them to a shallow, rapid-fire interrogation without the flow or genuine inquisitiveness of a real conversation. The more subtle but, in my view, even more impactful reason is that asking more questions can actually yield less useful information. That may sound paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true. Here’s why.
As an interviewer, your most precious resource is time. In every interview, a surprising amount of time is consumed by tasks that do not involve asking the candidate questions: introductions and introductory chitchat; time for the candidate to ask you their own questions; and a polite conclusion of the interview that includes an explanation of next steps.
That means that as an interviewer, there is a lot of pressure to make the most of the limited remaining time to gather the information you need to make the right hiring decision. Hurrying the candidate through a long list of scripted questions almost guarantees that your interview will have a lot of breadth, but not much depth--because you will only have time to glide over the top of each answer or example without going deeper. I have found that this approach tells me that the candidate achieved interesting things, but not necessarily how or why, or whether that success will translate.
Instead, I suggest that the winning formula for a great interview is to formulate only 2-4 questions, and to use those as jumping-off points for a few deeper dives into those topics. This requires that you, the interviewer, need to actively listen to the candidate—meaning that you are listening to understand, not just listening to respond—and use prompts from the conversation to generate relevant follow-up questions that build out your holistic understanding of the candidate.
Why is this a better approach? Well, there are a few reasons:
First, a well-prepared candidate will have strong, polished answers prepared for most common interview questions, that they have practiced many times. That is not a bad thing--in fact, it's something I help my clients with--but as an interviewer, you will learn more about the candidate’s true knowledge and command of the situation when you can use follow-up questions that require deeper and more detailed answers. The goal is not to trick or trap the candidate, but to paint a more full picture of the candidate.
Second, most common interview questions solicit "what" answers - i.e., a description of what happened. For example, "what was your proudest achievement?" or "what was a situation where you made a mistake that you were able to learn from?" These are good questions that prompt the candidate to describe key events, but I have found "what" answers rarely provide enough information on their own to make a hiring decision. After all, big accomplishments in a different role in a differentorganinzation don't automatically make the candidate a great fit for your role. You need to know how they achieved those accomplishments, why they made the decisions they did, what other options they considered, and how they worked with others to deliver those results. Good follow-up questions can paint the full picture of an event, helping you thoroughly understand the candidate’s approach and behaviors to evaluate if their successes would translate to your organization or role. This is the core of making an informed hiring decision.
Third, an interview conducted this way is usually more fun and insightful, both for you and the candidate. These interviews tend to be organic, flowing conversations that cover interesting ground, make the candidate feel heard and valued, and helps create a bond between the candidate and the interviewer. Creating a positive candidate experience is important in many ways, particularly when trying to later convince the candidate to accept an offer to join your organization.
In the next post, I will talk about some strategies for how to generate good follow-up questions on the fly, and to create the right conversations within your interviews.
