Best interview questions to spot ideal employees

An interview should be a conversation, shaped to each individual. The aim is to try to discover information about the person (and vice versa) gradually by following threads of thought and argument in a properly developed context. The style of conversation, and the specific subject matter, should differ between individuals - it should be shaped to their context, and their responses should be shaped to your context, for it to be a valuable use of everyone's time.

The moment you start to think in terms of 'sets of questions' or much worse 'best questions' to ask everyone and anyone who comes in for an interview, you've failed as an interviewer, in my opinion. This just gets more true as the questions become more generalised and abstract, which unfortunately they will tend to in order to filter up into a set of 'standard' or 'best' questions you'll find online. That's not to say you don't want topics or themes or ideas of questions to steer the conversation towards, and of course as with anything all the skill is in the delivery, but it's a fine line to walk and certainly thinking of an interview in terms of getting through a list of topics or questions is veering towards the wrong side of that line.

It's tempting to pull questions from these lists, and just rap them off, because it's easy and you can convince yourself it's a good idea because a lot of them exist on the internet, so there seems to be some consensus that this is a good practice. I've done it myself in the past, and it was a mistake. It's lazy, it gives awful results, neither side of the interview will have a good experience or a genuine, valuable human interaction. It's not smart or a hack, just bad interviewing.

These sort of interview question posts really get to me. It's all just a power trip thing by mostly little people; "we're on this side of the table and you're on that side and it's a great opportunity for us to feel good about ourselves by asking you stupid and personal questions that makes us feel really important, smart and insightful while you're sweating bullets".

Edit: My experience is that you never really know how people turn out. Sometimes an interview can contribute to a hiring decision, but mostly not. Just hire someone for a few weeks and see how they go, if you work great together ask them to stay for another few months, etc.

>"What will make you love coming to work here everyday?"

An important addendum should be: "Are you able to do quality work somewhere you don't love?"

If your interview process filters for superhumans, you won't get superhumans, you'll just get liars.

Reads more like a pub crawl companion evaluator than an employee interview guide.

Employees don't have to be likeable - they have to be able to get the job done.

"Culture fit. Does their personality match the company’s values?"

Culture fit means demographic group membership, it has nothing to do with values or whatever, but I'm sure they didn't want to open that can of worms.

> Focused. Can they possibly eschew Facebook, Twitter, IM, Hacker News, et al. for eight hours?

What does it have to with being focused? I take some short breaks and visit HN and reddit to "empty" my mind and to have some fresh air not because I'm lazy or unfocused.

> Focused. Can they possibly eschew Facebook, Twitter, IM, Hacker News, et al. for eight hours?

How about NO?

I still want to know: How many dentists _are_ there in Poland?

Is a team player essentially a person who schmoozes well?

> "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay, I'm done...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA