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This HR expert started sending candidates job interview questions in advance—here’s why

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2 months ago

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This HR expert started sending candidates job interview questions in advance—here’s why

Job interviews can be nerve-wracking: Not only do you want to be personable and connect with your interviewer, but you also hope to be prepared enough to provide smart answers to their questions on the spot.

Holly Taylor was recently in charge of hiring for her team and decided to take some guesswork out of the equation.

Contrary to how most hiring managers operate, Taylor sent job candidates the interview questions in advance.

‘That’s something that you really need to go away and consider’

Taylor, who has a decade of experience in the HR space, is the head of people at Public Digital, a digital transformation consulting company based in London.

While hiring for a new leader, she wanted to try an unusual strategy she felt would foster a more equitable interview process.

She sent each candidate a message a week before their interview outlining the format of the panel discussion and sharing a case study for them to think about, profiles of each person they’d be talking to, and a list of questions they’d be asked.

Holly Taylor is the people director at Public Digital, a London-based consultancy.

Courtesy of subject

Taylor noticed some immediate benefits: She was able to ask more thought-provoking questions. Plus, she could give candidates a better idea of the company’s culture.

For example, one question she asked was:

“We believe that openness is something all organizations should value and practice. We work as transparently as possible. With that in mind, what does working in the open mean to you, and how would you factor transparency in your work given the sensitive nature of what HR does?”

“If I was going to ask that completely cold in an interview, I think that’s a bit unfair, because I think that’s something that you really need to go away and consider and think about,” Taylor tells CNBC Make It.

Plus, she adds, the context teeing up the question can give candidates “a flavor of what it would be like to work here” and what the company values.

Establishing those values ahead of time can entice candidates who share them. It also gives prospects time to think through — and better demonstrate — how they’ve embraced those values in the past.

Being quick on your feet isn’t everything

Taylor says one of the biggest reasons why hiring managers are reluctant to send questions in advance is because they want to measure how well someone thinks on their feet.

But that ability may be overrated, she says. “How often do you really need to think on your feet?” she says. “Even if you’re in that moment and don’t know the answer, what do you do? You go, ‘OK, I don’t have that answer for you right now, but if you can leave it with me, I’ll go away and I’ll come back to you.'”

“That just comes down to stakeholder management,” Taylor says.

From her perspective, “people that can think on their feet, it doesn’t mean they’re really good at their job,” Taylor says. Thinking quickly might not translate to actually moving quickly or to delivering quality work at the end of the day, she says.

Case in point, Taylor asked each job candidate what they thought of her sending the interview questions in advance.

One mentioned they really appreciated the method because it gave them sufficient time to reflect on their answers.

Another said that since they think quickly, having the questions didn’t really impact their preparations. However, that person didn’t get the job — in part because the answers they gave were underdeveloped and lacked substance compared to their peers.

People that can think on their feet, it doesn’t mean they’re really good at their job.

Holly Taylor

Head of people at Public Digital

“What was really interesting,” Taylor says, is that even though all the candidates had a heads up, “the quality of the answers was so different.”

Of course, Taylor was clear that candidates could expect follow-up questions from the panel that went beyond the prepared list. Job interviews, she says, are best seen as conversations with plenty of questions from all sides.

“The whole point of it is being able to ensure that you’re really setting somebody up for success in that interview,” Taylor says, and embracing “different thinking styles” in the workplace.

In the end, Taylor says this method helped her and her team feel confident in hiring the right person for the job, and she hopes to make it a standard practice for job interviews in her company moving forward.

Want to land your dream job? Take CNBC’s online course How to Ace Your Job Interview to learn what hiring managers really look for, body language techniques, what to say and not to say, and the best way to talk about pay.

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