Competition in hiring is fierce right now. The Great Resignation has created a number of vacancies with 4.3 million people quitting their jobs at the end of last year. You may only get one interview completed before finding out your candidate has accepted another position, so you need to make that interview count. Often in interviews, some very unnecessary questions are asked. Having questions that focus on the individual’s job performance and potential can be far more useful and help reduce your time to hire.
Interviews that focus solely on performance and potential are called Performance Based Interviews, or PBIs. The biggest benefit to this type of interviewing is that it gives you, the interviewer, a real indication of how the applicant would do at your company. According to Indeed, PBI interviews delve deeper into a candidate’s previous experiences. An interviewer asks the candidate about how he or she reacted or handled a specific work situation, helping the interviewer understand past work behavior.
Answer Every Part of Every Question: Performance Based Interview
Describe a time you had to make a difficult decision.
An interviewer may ask this question to assess your problem-solving skills and reasoning ability. This question provides insight into your judgment skills. Use this question as an opportunity to show your ability and willingness to take intelligent and well thought-out risks.
Example: “At my current company, we had layoffs at the beginning of the year. As a department manager, I was responsible for providing upper management with my recommendations for which employee in my department to let go. Since I have close relationships with my entire team, it was important for me to make the most objective and impartial decision as possible. To make my recommendations, I reviewed recent employee reviews, considered the seniority of each employee and evaluated employee performance metrics.”
Tell me about a situation when you motivated your coworker.
An interviewer may ask this question to asses your leadership potential. This question may show your ability to be an informal leader, meaning taking on the responsibility of encouraging those around you without having a management position. Use the STAR method and include personal details about how you were successful.
Example: “When I worked as a copy editor, I noticed a fellow editor growing disconnected and falling behind in assignments. I challenged them to a friendly competition to see how many articles we could each edit in a week, and, at the end of the month, whoever had the least articles edited had to purchase the winner lunch. This created healthy competition between us, and my coworker felt excited about their job again. Their performance improved beyond just the month.”
What Are Performance Based Interview Questions?
As discussed earlier, performance-based interview questions are similar to behavioral interview questions. These questions require more from you than just a simple ‘yes‘ or ‘no.’ Performance-based interview questions require you to go in-depth about a situation you have faced in the past in a professional work environment. For interviewers, this is a perfect way to focus on your past successful experiences, how you solve problems, how you handle challenges, and in which work environments you thrive.
Performance-based interview questions, in general, have several things in common. They are standardized in nature, which helps interviewers to use the same evaluation criteria for every candidate. The most important thing about standardization is that it prevents bias by leveling the playing field for everybody who applied for the job. Also, this type of interview question requires specific examples and situations that demonstrate the skills and traits needed for the job. Furthermore, performance-based interview questions are not only suitable to assess technical skills, but they are also perfect for hiring managers to gauge soft skills such as communication, leadership, growth potential, and cultural fit.
