Lesson 206 · 2 min

Better interview questions

Ask AI for questions that make candidates describe what they actually did, tied to the skills the job needs.

"What is your biggest weakness?" gets a rehearsed answer. Questions about real past situations tell you much more: "Tell me about a time a customer was angry. What did you do, and what happened?"

Give the AI the job's key skills and ask for two questions per skill that start with "Tell me about a time..." plus follow-up questions to dig deeper.

Ask it also for what a strong and a weak answer might sound like. That gives every interviewer the same yardstick, which makes the process fairer.

Remove questions that touch on private life, such as marriage plans, religion or family. They are unfair, often unlawful, and say nothing about the job.

Do it now

Build a question set

  1. 1. List the 3 or 4 skills the job needs most.
  2. 2. Run the prompt below.
  3. 3. Remove any question you could not explain to the candidate as job-related.
I am interviewing for [ROLE]. Key skills: [LIST]. For each skill, write 2 questions about real past situations ("Tell me about a time..."), 2 follow-up questions, and a short note on what a strong answer and a weak answer sound like. Do not include questions about private life.

Quick check

Which question tells you most about a candidate's real skills?

Which question tells you most about a candidate's real skills?

More on this

Words from this lesson

Prompt
The instruction or question you give an AI. Clearer prompts with context usually get much better answers.
Bias
When an AI treats some people or ideas unfairly because of skewed patterns in the data it learned from.