Six Types of Interview Questions and When to Use Them

By Florence Stone

Like most things, questions have a time and a place—certainly when you conduct job interviews. Let's look at six kinds of questions and when they are best used.

1. Closed questions. These questions are usually answerable with a “yes” or “no.” They have the advantage of getting you exactly the information you need. But they won't give you much depth of information, unless the candidate chooses to elaborate.
2. Open-ended questions. They work well at the beginning of an interview to put a candidate at ease or to learn about a candidate's accomplishments in past jobs.
3. Attitudinal questions. These are open-ended, for the most part, and are designed to solicit a person's attitude about a subject. For instance: “How do you feel about working in a team setting?” Or, a closed question might be, “Could you operate in a team setting?” In this instance, depending on the candidate's reply, you might follow up by asking the applicant to elaborate.
4. Probe. A probe is a follow-up to a question previously asked. For instance, let's say that the applicant tells you that she can operate in a team setting. You might ask, “Why do you feel that way?”
5. Mirror probe. This is a restatement of an earlier response followed by a request for clarification. “You say that you think we have a dynamic industry. Why do you feel that way?”
6. Leading questions. This question is sometimes used to persuade, to let the interviewee know how he or she is expected to think, and sometimes it is used to test whether the interviewee has the courage to disagree and how the interviewee handles pressure.

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Author Bio: Florence Stone is editorial director of American Management Association and editor of MWorld, its quarterly journal. She is the author of several management and leadership books, including The Essential New Manager's Kit and The Mentoring Advantage, published by Dearborn Trade, and The Managers Question and Answer Book, published by AMACOM, the publishing division of American Management Association.