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iQuestions Faculty, Jack Herschend 
 
 
Question: 
 
What are some good guidelines for conducting an interview with a 
potential employee? 
 
Answer:   
 
There are lots of boilerplate questions that need to be asked in an 
interview, and I won’t address those, because that’s a list that’s easily 
acquired. I think the most important thing that I could contribute to 
the interview is the importance of the person being interviewed 
knowing whether this job really fits him or her. 
 
We think of the selection process as a one-sided process, where the 
person is making the decision. There’s an important part of the proper 
selection process that calls for the person being interviewed to make a 
decision as to whether this job really fits their giftedness, their skill 
set.  
 
So, it’s a two-sided process. I like to divide the time evenly in an 
interview between questions that the person doing the interviewing 
asks of the interviewee. But then equal time to the interviewee to ask 
questions about the job. And then at the end of the interview, end it 
with asking that employee to state why he or she feels that this job is 
right or is not right for them, given their skill set and their level of 
interest. 
 
Very often, the interviewee will make a judgment as to whether their 
job-related needs will be met by this job—and that’s something that 
the person doing the interview can’t decide, because we don’t know 
enough about the individual seeking the job, and we can’t ask enough 
 
 
questions to determine, really, whether the job is going to be a good 
job for the person being interviewed.   
 
So, it’s a two-way process, with decisions being made both by the 
person being interviewed and the person who is doing the 
interviewing.   
  
 
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