96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire

by Paul Falcone

Why do so many promising job candidates turn out to be disappointing employees? Learn how to consistently hire the right people at the right time for the right roles.

Every manager and human resources department has experienced a candidate whom they viewed as promising individuals full of potential turning out to be underwhelming employees. Employment expert Paul Falcone supplies the tools you need to land top talent.

What is the applicant’s motivation for changing jobs? Do they consistently show initiative? The third edition of this practical guide book is packed with interview questions to possibly ask candidates, each designed to reveal the real person sitting across the table.

In 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire, Falcone shares strategic questions that uncover the qualities and key criteria you seek in your next hire,

Achievement-anchored questionsQuestions that qauge likeability and fitPressure-cooker questionsHolistic questions that invite self-assessmentQuestions tailed to sales, mid-level, or senior management positionsComplete with guidelines for analyzing answers, asking follow-up questions, checking references, and making winning offers, 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire covers the interviewing and hiring process from beginning to end, leaving no stone unturned.

Genres: Business, Reference, Recruitment, Professional Development, Nonfiction, Human Resources, Management

359 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Kurtis Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a valuable read, and gave some good insight into questions to ask when Interviewing. I found it was fairly focused on management type questions, but gave me some good insight into answers candidates could give and what to watch out for. I'm definitely going to read through it again next time I need to interview - or be interviewed.

Note that the book is definitely targeted towards Hiring Managers and there are chapters I did not read (i.e. "How to get the most from an employee's references", HR Questions, etc). Nevertheless I found this to be a very useful resource.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not only great for those who hire and want to design questions that will reveal strengths and weaknesses of candidates in the context of the work you want done and the workmates s/he will do it with, it is great for those candidates who want to peer under the curtain to see what current hiring practice is going to throw at them before showing up at an interview.

[Lillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Understanding the opposition.
This is a great resource for upcoming interviews. It tells you the kind of questions to expect, what answers are desirable, and how prospective employers interpret the answers you do give.

Very illuminating!

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic insight to interviewing if it is something you have not done in a while. Falcone addressed most of the questions asked at interviewing and prepares you on how to best answer these questions.

[Kes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked that this book (1) posed questions, (2) broke down red flags, (3) provided example answers, and highlighted things that could be taken away from the example answers, and (4) stressed that every job's needs are different - so it's a question of matching the personality to the role as well.

At the same time, I discussed the questions with a recruiter friend - and they said that these were very American questions, such that they would consider anyone posing the questions would be a little bit of a red flag itself. So I guess the application of this would vary depending on cultural context.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

thought-provoking prep for a job interview, or good fodder for the hiring. Aimed to get "real information", how to spot "red flads" indicating evasions or untruths.

[Aasim Waheed · Rating 3 out of 5]

same as High Impact Interview Questions; this one has lesser questions, more commentary on each question

[Iscritto Iscritti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe not a breakthrough book, but it has a whole lot of interesting questions.
Strongly reccomended to people that (like me) must recruit often.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you need some interview questions this is a really good book.

[Jacob Cruzan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great advice for conducting interviews.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been trying to break myself of asking leading interview questions, and in general I found this book very helpful (though how successful my hires are remains to be seen). It walks you through broad, open ended questions and gives thorough explanations of what to look for in candidate answers based on what you're hiring for. The questions are thoughtfully worded to get helpful answers from interviewees, and go beyond "tell me your strengths and weaknesses." There are also chapters for hiring more specific positions (salespeople, admin, remote workers, etc) that are only limitedly useful. Like if you hire teachers I think the first half of the book would be very relevant, while the remainder wouldn't be. There were some 'insights' that were very dated (like 'be careful of millennials because they have no allegiance and lower work ethic'), but I felt those were easily ignored.

[Marcell Nimführ · Rating 1 out of 5]

The best parts of the book were the pages saying "This page left intentionally blank". When was this written? In the 1950ies?

Two of the 96 "Great Questions" are: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Followed by all the other crap that no modern recruiter should do anymore. All you get to know if you follow the 96 questions is how well a candidate is prepared.

I don't question the quality of the book but I question the validity of the method.

[Emmanuel Ladoux · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty lame questions!
e.g. #1 and #2 are simply "what's your greatest strength?" and "what's your greatest weaknes?".
"On a scale of one to ten [...], how do you see yourself as a supervisor?”
I don't need to buy a book to be asking such old-style, basic questions...
Definitely not how you detect "high performance candidates" (title of the 1st chapter).

[Emily Bade · Rating 3 out of 5]

A so-so resource for interview prep. Worth browsing through all the questions and recommended responses, but written by an HR guy, so doesn't necessarily account for the range of interviewers you'll encounter.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book and the questions Falcone goes over were pretty generic. There are some sample forms on phone screening. It points out what a red flag answer looks like and goes over what a good answer looks like. Don't recommend this book.

[Alexander Belugin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Хорошая книга, подойдёт как единственная. Понятная структура, понятные вопросы, можно читать только нужные секции. Открытий не нашёл для себя.

[Nathan Siudak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful questions on top of the recruitment knowledge I had. Was cool to see the psychology behind some of the questions!

[Dharwiyanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saya adalah penganut aliran "structured interview", di mana setiap kandidat untuk posisi yang sama diberikan pertanyaan yang kurang lebih sama. Dengan demikian jawaban para kandidat tsb akan lebih mudah dibandingkan secara objektif. Buku Paul paling tidak membantu saya menciptakan pertanyaan yang tepat.

Pertanyaan-pertanyaan wawancaranya cukup menarik, walaupun variasi pertanyaan untuk setiap tipe kandidat (manajerial tingkat tinggi atau fresh graduate) nggak terlalu banyak. Yang lebih ditekankan Falcone adalah bagaimana menggali lebih banyak dari jawaban yang diberikan dan hal2 yang harus diwaspadai ("tanda2 bahaya").

Bagian yang kurang bermanfaat buat saya adalah cara pengecekan referensi, yang dijabarkan dengan cukup detil dalam buku ini. Mungkin belum banyak dilakukan di Indonesia ya?

[Theut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non ho trovato domande particolarmente disruptive/originali, ma è utile senza dubbio la parte di analisi delle risposte con i diversi scenari.
Da leggere soprattutto per chi non ha ancora molta esperienza come intervistatore/intervistatrice.

UPDATE 2024: le domande sono state utilissime per una situazione meno sofisticata in cui mi sono trovata. Un buon catalogo per chi inizia il mestiere di intervistatore.

[John]

Picked it up for some ideas. Put it down gaining none.

[Turki Younis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have found this book helpful for all recruiters and managers whom inculds thier jobs a lot of hiring.
Yes l, I found it long a bit, not easy English for non English speakers

[Craig Motlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird book. A lot of the questions are actually good, but the rationale seems borderline hostile toward the candidates.

[Amacom]

Second edition came out in November 2008.