Revealing A Candidate's Hidden Strengths

You’re filling a role, and have spent your time narrowing your search down to just two top candidates. After much deliberation, you choose the one with slightly more experience. A wise choice, by anyone’s standards. However, what you didn’t realise was that the other is an incredible strategist or a natural leader, and they would have been exactly what your workplace needs in the long-run. Unfortunately, they didn’t even know this themselves, so they couldn’t tell you.

These hidden gems don’t have to catch you by surprise. To help you uncover the buried qualities that candidates might not even see in themselves, here are a few golden interview questions designed to highlight whatever may be hidden in plain sight.

"Is there anything that you find easy that other people seem to praise you for?" 

Strengths that come as naturally as breathing are the ones that people are most likely to gloss over, forget, or downplay. If they’re inherently talented at something then they might not see it as a talent at all.

Asking a candidate for the compliments they tend to brush aside can quickly reveal what attributes they possess that others see as valuable. Perhaps they’re incredibly reliable and often receive praise for their punctuality and professional manner - but they don’t see what all the fuss is about. Maybe they’re an incredibly engaging public speaker and people can’t help but comment on this each time they present in front of a crowd - but they never think too much of the compliment. If other people have consistently made an effort to praise this person for something, then they must have been doing it exceptionally well (even if it felt like nothing to them).

"What work activities make you lose track of time?"

A question such as this will help you uncover what a candidate is truly passionate about in a professional context. They might tell you that they have found problem-solving with teammates incredibly engaging, or that knuckling down with a creative project made their day fly by. This can reveal traits that they’ve never thought of as strengths, simply because these tasks have never felt like work in the traditional sense. These instinctive strengths or passions could develop into truly valuable skills for your company when placed in the right environment.

"What exasperated you the most in your previous role?" 

When a particular activity seems simple to the candidate, they might become a little frustrated or confused when others can’t keep up. Whether they have been tasked with keeping a project organized or problem solving a situation that requires “out of the box” thinking and a strategic approach, their frustrations can reveal which skills come easily for them. A sound, well thought out answer will show that the candidate not only recognized that their approach was better for the company, they also handled their frustration professionally and ultimately found a way to work around the problem.

"In school, which activities were you most excited about - and where did you excel?"

Most candidates will either gloss right over their high school extracurriculars or accomplishments, or not mention them at all. Many seem to think that these things aren’t important and that you, the recruiter, don’t want to know that they always looked forward to Tuesday football practice or that they received an award for being first in their school for English. But this information is valuable, as it shows you which tasks they have a knack for now, much later in life.

Keeping with our football example, this could mean that your candidate finds joy working as a cohesive team, even from an early age. They may still thrive in team-oriented tasks in the workplace and emerge as the natural leader in the office, engaging their peers to succeed as a group. Having found this out, you might decide that they’re perfect for a position rife with collaboration, rather than an autonomous role.

Ultimately, the more you know about your candidate at the end of the interview, the better. Asking smart questions that get a candidate thinking beyond what they’ve already written on their resume can help you more accurately predict their job performance and can help you find the perfect candidate that you have been looking for.