Mark Murphy explains why three common interview questions—"Tell me about yourself," "What are your strengths?" and "What are your weaknesses?"—fail to reveal anything real. Every candidate gives the same rehearsed answer, so you learn nothing about who they actually are or what they can do.
Don't ask questions that waste time. What are some of the questions that waste time? Well, the 3 most common questions that get asked in interviews: Tell me about yourself. What are your strengths? And what are your weaknesses? Now everybody looks at this and says, really? Those are bad questions? Why are they bad questions? They're not bad questions because they're evil or anything like that. They're bad questions because everybody gives the same exact answer. So, Mark, tell me about yourself. Well, you know, I'm a motivated self-starter. I love individual accountability, but you know, I also love working collaboratively and working on teams. Huh, that's— never heard that before. That's great. Listen, I don't suppose you have any weaknesses or anything like that? Well, I don't really like to talk about this too much, but I have been told at times in the past that sometimes I care too much. Sometimes I give too much of myself. I can be a perfectionist. My work is always perfect, and sometimes I'm just a little too driven to make it that way. Okay, thanks for playing. Um, whenever we ask questions like this, unfortunately, just about everybody on the planet has a prepared answer to each of these 3 interview questions. Why? 'Cause they're the 3 most commonly asked interview questions, like, ever. So we want to avoid questions where everybody gives the same answer.
