Getting interview questions before the interview

[againstthestorm]

I have an interview next week and they are sending me the interview questions 15 mins before the interview starts.

Have to say I am horrified by this. Its not really long enough to prepare or find answers to tricky questions, but it is long enough to panic about not thinking of a good answer to the question, and to worry about that when answering all the other questions.

It also somehow seems more humiliating if I just don't have an answer to a question, or a really crap answer.

I'd really just rather not know the questions and have to deal with that on the day.

Anyone else had this?

Standard practice at our workplace although we usually give them out
2-3 days in advance

It's an inclusive practice to assist those who benefit from time to think and process.

I would find this helpful. You should have prepared examples to include in your answers anyway. 15 minutes is enough time to decide which of your examples you'll use to answer each of the questions.

Turn the paper over and don't read it then

I agree with this. You should already have prepped some examples of where you demonstrated your skills and/or qualities. Having the questions in advance just allows you to decide which of your examples best fit each question.

It saves you, for example, getting to the next question and having to refer back to a previous example because it's the best fit for the latest question. Then afterwards you kick yourself because you've, for example, delivered a range of projects but under the pressure of interview you kept referring to the same one or two.

I agree with you OP. Give them out a day or two in advance. 15 mins doesn't help at all.

Well you're gonna have to be quick at googling for sure

They won’t give you days to consider the questions because you would have time to ask other people for help.

Another candidate has possibly requested this as a reasonable adjustment as it helps them. So then they provide it to all. Just don't look at them OP.

One of them might be a scenario based Q where to think about. Don't ignore them!

LA here and questions are never available before the interview start.

I would love it if they were!!!

I did an interview like this recently. Prepare all your examples that you want to discuss beforehand. Then in the prep time you can allocate the examples to the relevant questions. 15 minutes seems fair as it's not too much time in which they'd be expecting word perfect answers. It will still involve some thinking on your feet. Best of luck 😊

It is a LA job!

This is good. Takes the panic out of the interview without time to prep answers. You should know what you want to highlight about you experience anyway so this gives you the opportunity to match examples to questions.

We do this at my place - it works well I think as it allows the candidates to marshall their thoughts/make notes. We want the interview to be more balanced and we think doing this should put candidates more at ease (although interesting to hear you think the opposite!)and therefore feel more relaxed/confident going into the interview..

I would love this. Last time I had an interview, I’d done loads of preparation and had lots of examples to talk about, but I think I’d linked the questions I was expecting too closely with the examples. She asked differently worded questions and I went to pieces and couldn’t think of the best examples, I ended using the same situation for a few of the answers and basically blew it. 15 minutes would be long enough for me to pick the best example to use for each question.

I've only ever done this when reasonable adjustments were asked for, so we gave all candidates the questions beforehand. On one side I liked it as it helped siphon off the bullshitters but on the other hand we had some boring preprepared answers read out.

I would prepare examples matching the person specification as normal and then when the questions are released assign your preprepared examples out to the questions and any you have missed start thinking of examples.

LA here too.

Why on earth would anyone send the interview questions before an interview?

I've had them a few days in advance and liked this. Fifteen minutes would be fine because I generally prepare a range of examples.

I agree that it's probably because a candidate had requested them as a reasonable adjustment (2 threads recently where candidates have asked if it would be appropriate to make such a request) so all candidates are getting them.

Or it's standard practice.

Read history of place of work, what they do overall well before anyway.

On the day 15 mins before..google the questions and bullet point..you can expand in there

To get the best out of all candidates and have a better idea of who’s the best person for the job. Rather than the person who’s best at thinking under immediate pressure get the job.

I know that working under pressure is important for jobs but how often do you have to make decisions within seconds?! There’s far more important things to be finding out from the candidates.

I always do plenty of interview prep but having the questions 15 mins beforehand would just panic me. An hour or two, fine; a day, even better. 15 mins is barely enough time to read them through properly, let alone map examples to them. I don't get what benefit this would bring to a candidate.

Well I have had the interview.

It did make me much more anxious knowing I was getting them in advance, so it didn't help to relax me.

What it did do, is make me realise that I was not the right fit for this job. The questions made it clearer exactly they were looking for and my background did not fit that so well.

I couldn't really back out that late in the day so muddled through.