Perry Maddox describes the day he was asked best job interview question ever and explains how to tackle such layered interview questions.
I was a bit too honest with my answer.
Ten years ago, I reached the final round of an interview for a COO role. It was an interview that would drastically alter the trajectory of my career.
Not that I wanted to hear that at the time.
My focus was on the questions coming at me. There wasn’t an easy question that afternoon. The panel threw the kitchen sink at me, working me on everything from finance to people, technology to teams.
But there’s only one of their questions that I remember a decade later.
The Best Job Interview Question Ever
The first question that day seemed innocent enough:
“If you were to succeed in this recruitment, what would you miss most from your current role?”
Simple on the surface, but as I thought for a moment, it hit me. This was the best job interview question ever.
Why? Because it was:
- Short. Stop overworking your questions, interviewer friends. The less you ask, the more space the candidate has to answer. The more detailed your question, the easier it is for them to deduce and play back what you want to hear.
- Direct. I am so over the HR bros out there who love to shock people with a complicated, hypothetical scenario question (looking at you, Google). Don’t be a jerk. Learn how to assess talent for real, without gimmick questions.
- Challenging. While the delivery is short and direct, the question is not at all. It’s almost a trap because it appears so simple yet is so layered.
So onto to those layers.
Why It Was the Best Job Interview Question Ever.
Can you spot them?
As innocent as it seems, this question packs a punch. The way you answer will say everything about your:
- Passion and what drives you. The question is effectively asking for the best element of your work today, and what you select from an entire job will tell them what lights your fire.
- Relationship with your current employer and role. If you harbor negativity or frustration, don’t let it come through.
- Strategic focus. Answer this one with something small (“the commute is short”), superficial (“I loved the office space”) or generic (“the team”), and you can kiss the interview goodbye. You have lots to choose from in answering this question. Will you land the right strategic focus?
- Self awareness. Something about this question elicits oversharing, or silence. I’ve watched this question derail an entire interview when a candidate couldn’t think of an answer. If you’ve not reflected on why you’re leaving a job, that’s a massive red flag to an interviewer. Equally, if you can’t shut up about your past role, forget it too, because that speaks to…
- Audience awareness. If your answer doesn’t align directly to something you’ll do in the new role, ciao. This isn’t about you, remember. It’s about the interviewers, so make sure to show how you align to them. Ideally the thing you’d miss most is precisely what brings you to this interview.
How to Answer the Question When You’re Asked.
How did I answer, you ask?
As I said at the start, the first words out of my mouth were way too honest:
“That’s a wonderful question, I gushed” dropping my guard to tell the interviewer how brilliant I thought the question was, before going on to answer with a blend of the bullets in the previous section.
And here’s the thing, it wasn’t that difficult a question. If you’ve prepared the interview well:
- Reflecting on why you’re leaving the role
- Mapping out your biggest successes and examples by reflecting on your current role
- Preparing to communicate your passion and unique value proposition as a person
- Researching and understanding the interview panel and employer so you can tailor your offer to their need.
Then this question is an easy one.
Once you correctly answer the best job interview question ever, you’ll have covered so many important bases of a standard interview. You may wonder why they even need to ask you anything else.
That’s a pretty good question too.
