Interviews are often rubbish

There’s been an interesting thread on LinkedIn recently about sharing interview questions in advance of interviews. In principle I really like this, for inclusivity reasons in particular. But there’s an underlying assumption that interview questions either shared beforehand or asked in the meeting are good! Often questions are dry and generic, immediately diminishing the draw of a role and a company, and not giving the candidate anything to chew on, or the space and freedom to show their metal.

Effective interviewing is a real skill and much more emphasis should be put on interviewers doing it well. (Turning up having read a CV is a good starting point people.) So train managers/interviewers on how to get the most out of people, and make sure they know that monologuing about their business or department for 30 minutes doesn't reveal much about the candidate! (I've experienced the listening game in interviews too many times.)

Hopefully any interview questions are just the starting point for an insightful conversation about challenges, opportunities and relevant experience but also a door opener to discovering someone's potential. i.e., My pet peeve, don't just look at past job titles on people's CVs, discuss their ambition, what's next and what they want to learn, as well as getting to know them in the round. Find out who they are as an individual not just a job title and what they believe they're capable of? Then you start to get to cultural fit, on top of experience criteria, and even to people who can help shift your culture and business in the direction you need.