Interviewer: Questions To Ask During An Interview

By Peggy Berry, Pharma Interactive Training Courses, www.phitcourses.com

If you’re like me and most people I’ve talked to, interviewing on either side of the table can be a daunting and arduous task. If you are being interviewed, you may be concered about explaining a short term job or a layoff or period of absence.  If you are the interviewer, you may not really know what questions to ask to do an adequate assessment or you may not kknow how to interpret the answers or how far to probe into the responses. In this series of blogs, I will strive to share with you my recommendations and experiences from both sides of the table. This experience includes 25+ years in the pharmaceutical industry with 15+ years as a direct supervisor.

When you are preparing to interview someone, most often you are given their CV or resume and sometimes a job description. I generally find that if these two documents were not already generally consistent in terms of education, purported skills and abilitys, and level of experience, then I wouldn’t even be interviewing. So, how do you make the next level assessment and what things are important to probe during an interview? The specific answer to this may be different depending on whether you are the direct supervisor, a peer, or a direct report. I will explore issues important to each as well as general questions and areas everyone should explore.