Stop Wasting Time with Low-Yield Interview Questions

In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, English professor Rob Jenkins (Georgia Perimeter College) criticizes the kinds of questions often asked in faculty hiring interviews:

• Canned questions – For example, Tell us about your experience with diverse student populations or Tell us about your experience using instructional technology. Such questions are so predictable, he says, “that any applicant who has done the bare minimum of homework can concoct an answer that will sound just fine – a canned answer to a canned question.” 

Instead, Jenkins suggests, interviewers should ask broader, more open-ended questions, for example: Tell us about the student body at the last place you taught or Tell us a little about your teaching methods. “Such questions invite the candidates to bring up topics like diversity and technology,” he says, “and if a given candidate doesn’t bring them up, then we have our answer. We also open the door for candidates to talk about much more than just ethnic diversity and Smart Boards – and we might very well get a telling answer to a question we didn’t even know we were asking.” 

• Impersonal questions – Hiring committees are told to avoid questions about age, marital status, and children, but some over-interpret this to mean they can’t delve into a candidate’s work background. Jenkins believes it’s important to read the applicant’s cover letter and resume and ask specific questions, for example: I see from your cover letter that you helped to launch a book festival in the Atlanta area. Tell us more about the festival and about the role you played in it as a representative of the college. 

• Two-part questions – Candidates often end up asking, “Can you repeat the second part of the question, please?” Better to ask the first question and, if the second hasn’t been covered in the answer, ask it as a follow-up. This won’t take any more time and it’s fairer to applicants.

• Questions with no good answer – For example, What do you see as your greatest weakness? What candidates usually come up with is “a bunch of prepackaged bull,” says Jenkins: I tend to put too much pressure on myself to perform at a high level. “The worst-case scenario,” says Jenkins, “if you actually catch someone off guard, is some sort of awkward confession that leaves everyone in the room feeling uncomfortable.” 

Another example: What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now? What are they supposed to say? They’ll still be teaching, which might indicate a lack of ambition? They’ll be running the place, which might sound arrogant. “Again,” says Jenkins, “the best we can hope for is some weaselly, canned answer that leaves no one satisfied.” 

“I understand that the ‘business model’ of hiring says we ought to be asking those sorts of questions,” he concludes, “but they really don’t work in a higher-education setting – if, indeed, they work anywhere. I say throw them out.” Here are the attributes that Jenkins believes good interview questions possess:

• They are open-ended and require a short narrative;
• They are specifically tailored to the candidate’s background and experience;
• They are clear, concise, and easy to remember;
• They actually provide interviewers with useful information;
• Some of them are case studies in which candidates are given realistic scenarios and asked how they would respond.

“We Need a New Interview Script: Why Do We Keep Asking Questions That Yield Little But Vague, Canned Answers?” by Rob Jenkins inThe Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 3, 2012 (Vol. LVIII, #22, p. A26), no e-link available