Customized Interview Guide FAQ

What is the Hire-Intelligence Interview Guide and what makes it special?

The Hire Intelligence Interview Guide is a tool specifically designed to help the hiring manager during an interview. Each guide is customized for each candidate based on the answers that he or she gave when completing the Hire-Intelligence Behavioral Evaluation. Hire-Intelligence uses Artificial Intelligence to probe each candidate on areas where they may exhibit behaviors beyond the norm. Descriptions of these behaviors and questions are provided to assist the hiring manager in probing the candidate to talk about themselves and to reveal more about themselves helping to insure a better interview and a better hire. It is important to note that the goal is to identify candidate behaviors that may result in a better or worse fit with the job.

Should I use all of the questions on the Interview Guide during the interview? How do I know which questions on the Interview Guide are the most important to ask my candidates?

The Hire-Intelligence Interview Guide provides the interviewer with a variety of questions to ask during an interview, but certainly more than could be asked during the typical 1 hour conversation. We suggest that the interviewer ask the following questions:

• any highlighted in red
• any question where the adjective and corresponding question spark a level of interest or concern
• any question that pertains specifically to a job for which the candidate is applying, i.e., an interviewer for a Sales Position might choose to ask several questions related to the candidates ability to prospect, cold-call, close orders and handle objections.




Can I just paraphrase the questions and ask them the way I wish?

All of the questions provided on the Hire-Intelligence Interview Guides have been reviewed for legality and appropriateness. That is why we strongly suggest that the questions be used as they are provided. However; if the interviewer feels the need for more information when asking a question, we suggest the following follow-up questions:

• Please provide me with some specifics or a specific instance where this occurred
• Tell me more about this
• Could you elaborate?




These questions are so different from my normal interview questions. What if the candidate feels uncomfortable answering?

The questions provided ARE different from the normal interview questions most candidates are asked during interviews. That is intentional and is meant to uncover aspects of a candidate’s personality that might otherwise remain hidden. Most employees leave a position due to issues of “fit”, not competence. Therefore, a successful interview should help the Hiring Manager not only determine whether or not the candidate possesses the appropriate set of skills necessary to succeed in the job, but also the behaviors required to fit-in with the culture of the organization and the team with whom they will work and whether or not they can interact effectively with customers, internally and externally. These questions greatly assist in bringing out the personal style and attitude of a candidate during an interview.




What do the adjectives given at the beginning of each interview question mean?

The adjectives provided at the beginning of every interview guide question are not definitive descriptors of the candidate; but rather the candidate’s behavior and personality traits identified by the Hire-Intelligence tool as statistically possible at a high enough level to warrant further investigation. Just because the adjective “FRIENDLY” appears on an interview guide does not mean that the interviewer can assume the candidate is so. Rather, the interviewer may choose to ask the question attached to this adjective to gain more information on the candidate’s ability to connect socially with others as well as discern its importance to the job at hand.




Why are there not questions for every characteristic on some interview guides?

Virtually every candidate tests at a low level on some characteristics. Hire-Intelligence chooses behavioral aspects within a candidate’s assessment that show possible extremes which could be areas of concern or interest to the interviewer.




Why are some questions printed in red? What is the significance of those questions?

Hire-Intelligence highlights some questions in red as “MUST ASK” questions. Any question highlighted in red indicated either an area of contradiction within the candidate’s evaluation or an area in which Hire-Intelligence probed the candidate multiple times on a specific behavioral characteristic that they possess. We highly recommend that those questions be asked during an interview to first delve into contradictory answers, and second, to explore to what degree the candidate exhibits those behaviors and how those might affect job performance, positively or negatively.




How do I use the Interview Guide in a team interview or if several people will be interviewing the candidate?

When conducting team interviews, the Hire-Intelligence Interview Guide is easily adaptable to any group interview setting. Although there is no one correct way to use the guide when multiple individuals are participating in the interview, we offer the following suggestions:

• One interviewer might ask all of the questions of interest about certain characteristics printed in black and another might ask only red-flag questions of the candidate
• Divide the pages of the interview guide between team interviewers and have each person choose questions of interest to ask of the candidate
• Have each interviewer choose questions pertaining specifically to characteristics of particular interest – i.e. for Sales People, one interviewer might ask questions regarding Achievement, Boldness, and Confidence and the other might ask about Tenacity, Discipline and Sociability

When multiple individuals will be interviewing the same candidate, but not in the same interview, we suggest the following for maximum interview effectiveness:

• All interviewers should briefly confer regarding the interview guide and the specific questions to be asked before the interviews take place
• Some interviewers want to ask the candidate the same questions in order to compare and contrast how the candidate answered. Some interviewers choose to divide the questions so that the candidate is never asked the same question twice. In either instance, do what works best for the individuals that will be interviewing the candidate. The goal is to effectively learn about the candidate’s behaviors and personality during the interview and to ascertain whether or not he or she will be a good fit for the position
• After the interviews are completed, the interviewers should convene and discuss the information gleaned from the candidate during the interview process. This “comparing of notes” will be extremely valuable to the individuals who will ultimately make the hiring decision with regard to whether the candidate possesses the right “fit” for the organization, team and job.