The Next Era Of Work Is Here, But Are You Asking The Right Interview Questions To Unearth The Best Talent?

Recruitment and hiring have changed during the pandemic. We’re now into an era of remote work and half-empty offices. As things stand, standard in-office interviews might become obsolete.

If you wish to thrive in a post-Covid world, you need to hire the right employees. This can only be accomplished if you are in a position to hire, have access to rich talent pools and ask the right questions during interviews.

To effectively prepare for work during or after the pandemic, you need to know how to hire interns, entry-level candidates and veterans. A major part of hiring and recruitment is candidate interviews. Today, we’ll tell you the 5 questions that you must ask your potential employees. Let’s get started.

Interview Question #1

What would you prefer: Working as a team member or independently?

Employers need to realize that the meaning of teams has changed drastically during the course of the pandemic. Entire teams do not operate out of offices — some work from remote locations too. Such teams are, what you would call “hybrid”.

You must take this into consideration during the interview. Find out which setting (remote or in-office) is most preferred by the candidate and why. That said, the value they deliver to your business will ultimately be your utmost priority.

Interview Question #2

Productivity and motivation: How will you ensure that they’re high in a remote setting?

If you do some digging on the internet you’ll find that employers are more or less satisfied with the levels of productivity displayed by their remote teams. In fact, if you investigate productivity in remote employees and how it’s being ensured, you will stumble upon reports stating that most employers do not feel their levels have dipped.

Thing is, after the pandemic, remote work or work-from-home opportunities will no longer be reserved for a chosen few. Almost all employees will want to have some form of work flexibility. And employers might oblige having witnessed satisfactory productivity and motivation levels in WFH scenarios.

Interview Question #3

How will you ensure continuous learning and upskilling in a remote setting?

We’re all adapting to change. For businesses and organisations, staying relevant in the various industries they belong to will determine their success or failure. During and after the time of uncertainty and change, the critical role of the HR conducting the interviews will matter as they will know if the candidates are invested in their own learning and development.

And this is important to know because employees need to be agile and flexible enough to navigate the unknown. Once an organization inculcates the values of lifelong learning via assisted training and upskilling, employees will be able to adapt to change. Keep in mind that learning and development of employees is a two-way street — personal and professional growth for them and the applications of whatever they learn for your business.

As the employer, you also need to be sure that they’re committed to their own learning. In the absence of employer-sponsored learning and development opportunities, the employees must take it upon themselves to upskill so that it becomes a habit. During the interview, ask them this question to know of their commitment. In fact, you can even expand on your question by asking how they practice learning/upskilling, what skills they have learned, the problems they faced and so on.

Interview Question #4

How do you view failure? Can you share a situation where you have personally experienced it?

If there’s one thing that the pandemic has taught us, it’s that there’s no way to predict when a catastrophe will strike and how it will affect everything. Although it’s unfortunate that this lesson is being learned the hard way, we’ve realized that we have to be ready with a Plan ‘B’ if things start going downhill.

Adapting to change and exploring new avenues to keep the business afloat is all that matters. Of course, going down this road means running into obstacles as you may have to constantly reorient business goals and the workforce. And let’s not forget that there will be failures along the way.

No wonder why this interview question on failure is crucial. Your potential employees must be comfortable with failure — they should see it as more of a boon than a bane.

Interview Question #5

How will you infuse creativity into your work?

The push towards complete digitalization and the applications of artificial intelligence have been a hot topic for many years now. But it seems that it was the pandemic that ultimately pushed organisations to mobilise employees and resources for the creation of digitalized, intelligent systems and applications.

Going by what we have seen so far, it looks like automation and digitalization aren’t agendas for now, but for the foreseeable future. At the helm of this epic transformation are employees with skills that will shape the future. In this day and age, problem-solving skills, creative thinking, and analytical ability will take precedence over everything else. Asking an interviewee about their creative side and how they plan to infuse it into their work will gain impetus like never before.