When it comes to the hiring process, it’s essential to have the right tools and resources in place to ensure that you’re making the best possible hiring decision. One of the most important pieces of the puzzle is the tie breaker interview. The purpose of a tie breaker interview is to assess which of two equally qualified candidates is best suited for the job. In making this assessment, it is essential to ask the right questions to get a sense of the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall fit for the role. In this blog post, we’ll provide some tips on crafting effective tie breaker interview questions that will help you make the right hiring decision. We’ll also provide some examples of tie breaker interview questions that you can use in upcoming interviews. By having the right questions at the ready, you’ll be able to make sure you have the most comprehensive picture of each candidate before making your final hiring decision.
- What made you choose to leave your last job?
- How have you changed in the past five years?
- What is your most important long-term goal? What are your short-term goals?
- What is your favorite job you’ve ever had and why?
5 Dangerous Things to Avoid Saying In a Job Interview
Why Do We Use Tiebreak Strategic Interview Questions?
It is easy to assume that these questions are a hybrid of difficult behavioral interview questions and questions that demand the candidates to think quickly. Additionally, a similar interview enables the hiring manager to learn and comprehend the candidates even more thoroughly.
Remember you have plenty of clever strategies to help you break the tie before you design it and call your applicants for a final, decisive round of questioning. Most experts agree that.
However, setting a final interview focused on strategic interview questions to ask candidates is your best chance for a great hire if you’ve exhausted all of your other options (ability tests included). Let’s look at some examples along with the “secret agenda” you want to adhere to when you take note of their responses.
10 Strategic Interview Questions to Ask Candidates Who are in a Tie
According to some experts, you should view these questions more as exercises designed to test candidates in a unique way. Finding the candidate who can advance your organization and foster its expansion is your goal. After all, if you completed your assessments to this point, you go beyond simply filling vacancies. Most likely, you are looking for potential leaders to develop. So let’s ask them the strategic questions that matter!.
#2: Assign value to individual skills
When you first began the hiring process, you probably created a list of qualifications and experience that the chosen applicant should have (or would be ideal to have). The hiring process should have been based on this person specification, but if it wasn’t, don’t worry.
Review the list of abilities and assign a value to each one. As an illustration, four points could be given to essential skills and one point to nice-to-haves.
Assess each competency or skill that each of your top candidates has by going back and giving them points. Evaluate each applicant based on the same standards, then compare the results.
You need to consider other tiebreakers if there is no difference (or a small one) between their scores. But your tiebreaker has succeeded if there is a discrepancy in their scores.
Considering the importance of each candidate’s skill set to my company, which one of my two candidates has the stronger skill set?
First things first: break the tie, don’t cut the rope
Two equally qualified candidates can be chosen for the position by using a few cunning strategies. But be careful not to exclude the other candidate from the selection process when you’re looking for “the one.”
No matter what happens, as a company you want the hiring process to be positive for both candidates. And most importantly, you already have a perfect candidate you can turn to if one declines the offer or if another position becomes available in the future.
Are they going to be a good cultural contributor? is undoubtedly a question you’ve already asked yourself. However, relying too heavily on “culture fit” when hiring can result in a homogenous culture, a lack of diversity, and even unconscious bias.
Try thinking of ‘culture contributor’ instead. Contributors to the culture can bring a variety of characteristics, values, and backgrounds as well as fresh ideas that spur innovation while also making your workplace more hospitable and inclusive for potential employees.
Is one of the candidates from a group that is underrepresented on your current team and thus might bring perspectives you may not have previously considered, or does either candidate stand out for the unique perspectives and experiences they could bring to your company?
Examining a candidate’s soft skills will help to clarify how they can improve the workplace culture.
Communication, conflict resolution and problem-solving help staffers address issues. Creativity and critical thinking help to find new solutions. Employees who are flexible and empathic perform well in teams and get along with others.
Ask the candidates for examples of times they’ve collaborated, solved problems, or displayed excellent communication if neither of them have mentioned it during the application or interview process. Alternatively, you might ask candidates to rank their soft skills in order of importance to determine if their priorities match those of the company.
While meeting urgent needs is obviously important, distinguishing between two candidates who are otherwise equal can be done by considering the direction you want your organization to go in the future.
It’s critical to select candidates who can advance the organization and support growth. Assess each candidate in light of your current team as well as their unique qualities to make this determination. Let’s say your candidates are vying for a marketing position in a medium-sized, growing company. Can you see one candidate making a more positive contribution to the organization’s future than the other? Does one candidate bring with them a particularly useful or rare skill that could potentially create a new offering or solution to a problem? Both candidates are qualified for the position given their backgrounds and abilities to present strong case studies. While unemployed, one of them established a side business to experiment with lead generation strategies. The other works as a digital marketer for a large company and creates and evaluates blog posts. Does one seem more equipped to meet the direction your business is taking and advance you?
FAQ
What are 10 good interview questions and answers?
- Tell me about yourself.
- Walk me through your resume.
- How did you hear about this position?
- Why do you want to work at this company?
- Why do you want this job?
- Why should we hire you?
- What can you bring to the company?
- What are your greatest strengths?
How do you choose between two candidates?
- Refer back to your original job posting. …
- Look to the future. …
- Consider each candidate’s interest level. …
- See what your gut says. …
- Remind yourself you’d be happy with either candidate. …
- Make an unexpected choice.
What is the 10 questions they ask in interview?
- Could you briefly introduce yourself and outline your background for me?
- How did you hear about this position? …
- What type of work environment do you prefer? …
- How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations? …
- Do you prefer working independently or on a team?
What are the 5 hardest interview questions and answers?
- Tell Me About Yourself. …
- Tell me about a time when you failed or made a mistake, and how you handled it.
- Describe a time when you had to deal with a challenging coworker and what you did.
- Why did you leave your last job? …
- Why do you want this job?
