The Challenge

Generic questions like “Tell me about yourself”, “What are your weaknesses?”, or “What are your strengths?”, are interview staples. However, these questions have become so overused, Sales & Marketing candidates often have canned responses prepared and as such they offer little genuine insight.

Consider how many times you’ve asked someone what their weaknesses are, to be told by a candidate that they’re a ‘bit of a perfectionist’. Perhaps you’ve provided this answer yourself and glimpsed a roll of the eyes that suggests it wasn’t the first time the interviewer has heard this?

Even when responses to these questions break from the norm, they are that well known it’s easy to appreciate that superficial replies may have been crafted in advance and simply recited. These provide little guarantee as to whether the candidate is a commercially astute high-performer, or simply good at memorising and delivering responses to frequently asked questions.

The Alternative

Instead of asking commercial candidates about their strengths and weaknesses, ask them about what motivates and demotivates them. This will help them to tune into their emotions when providing responses which will give a greater indication as to whether they are genuine or scripted.

Follow up their answers with secondary and tertiary questions that dig into how their strengths and weakness contribute to the feelings of motivation and demotivation as this approach to questioning will provide more genuine insight as opposed to scripted responses.

Taking a different approach to the way you ask, and then follow up with further questioning, will allow you to mitigate pre-scripted responses.

If you would like more support in the search & selection of top FMCG commercial talent, please get in touch with our team:

Manchester — 0161 274 9184

London — 0203 196 0896

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