Types of Interview Questions

Interview is a vital part of recruitment procedure. Some interviews are
followed by the written test and others are taken directly. Job
interview always brings stress, anxiety and fear for the interviewer
especially if he/she is going to appear for the first time.

On the other hand, preparation is also needed by the interviewer for
what questions to ask in order to make appropriate selection. There is
general set of questions that are usually asked in most of the
interviews. These questions can be categorized into seven types which
include open questions, closed questions, hypothetical questions,
leading questions, multi barreled questions, and behavioral questions.

The open questions are asked usually in the beginning of interview such
as 'tell us about yourself'? The interviewee can speak as much as he/she
wants to describe himself/herself professionally. For answering such
questions selection criteria and individual's strength should be kept in
mind.

Closed questions are those questions that do not provide enough chance
for interviewee to speak apart from yes or no. These questions are asked
in order to seek specific technical or factual information. The
interviewee should make sure that he has understood the question
completely otherwise he/she should not hesitate to request for
clarification about the question.

In the hypothetical questions, a situation is created to assess the
thinking abilities of the interviewee. For instance for a communication
professional a questions could be like 'what would you do if journalists
calls suddenly for a query about your press release'? Such questions
demand a solid knowledge about the subject matter.

The leading questions require logical answer. The interviewer may ask
'this job requires working under pressure and meeting deadlines-do you
have these skill? The answer should be more than a yes or no. It should
be supported with the previous experience.

Multi barreled questions are two or more combined questions relevant to
the same topics. Such questions can be confusing for the interviewee. In
this case he/she may ask to recall the questions.

The last category of the questions, behavioral questions are asked to
foresee the future behavior of the candidate in the light of past
experience. It needs to answer with examples of past experience that how
the particular skills were developed in the past and how it can benefit
the interviewer.

There are some questions which should be avoided to ask for example
personal question about the age, martial status, family background or
height? Although such questions are necessary for the particular jobs
for instance in army or air lines but the best alternatives can be asked
instead of asking such questions directly, if an interviewer observes a
candidate out of the job criteria for the reasons of his personal
information.