What are some of the questions a technical recruiter should or should not ask a candidate during a screening or interview session? Questions are great, but some are better left till the end of the interview.
- Don’t start the screening by asking or validating job requirements questions. Example questions are, ‘How many years do you have in .Net Development?’, ‘How many years do you have using Visual Studio?’ These questions will do little in finding out if the candidate is right for the position.
- Don’t ask the candidate questions about their experience and skills before the candidate has had a chance to learn about the position. The information and questions about the position should come before questions about the candidate. Imagine that you are the candidate and receive a call from a recruiter who introduces themselves and shortly after starts asking questions about your experience before telling you about the position, which is the main reason you took the call. Example questions are: ‘Why did you leave your last position?’, ‘What are you working on now?’ After the few questions, you want to get off the phone as fast as you can because this surely feels like an interrogation and not a casual screening.
These are just a few questions and situations that are uncalled for at the start of a screening process. We’ve all heard that there are never wrong questions; with that said, here’s a tip to help you with the screening. RE-arrange the order of your screening questions group to one similar to the one below.
- The position
- The candidate
- Validate job requirements are met (if not already answered during the previous categories)
This format ensures that the technical recruiter gets the most important screening questions out first, in order of importance to the candidate.
