Punch line: The more questions you ask, the more you learn about a job candidate, right?
Wrong.
Here is a better strategy.
* * * * *
Excerpted from Inc.com , “Best Interview Technique You Never Use”
Sometimes, instead of asking questions, the best interviewing technique is to listen slowly.
In Change-Friendly Leadership, management coach Rodger Dean Duncan describes how he learned about listening slowly from PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer:
“He urged me to ask a good question, listen attentively to the answer, and then count silently to five before asking another question … Giving other people sufficient psychological breathing room seemed to work wonders.”
Once you give candidates a silent hole to fill, they’ll fill it, often in unexpected and surprising ways.
A shy candidate may fill the silence by sharing positive information she wouldn’t have otherwise shared. A candidate who came prepared with “perfect” answers to typical interview questions may fill the silence with not-so-positive information he never intended to disclose.
Edit by JDC
Tags: interviewing, silence
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