My earlier post The Very Best Interview Question drew lots of great responses. I asked readers to give their best and worst questions and many took up the challenge. As promised, the winners follow and absolutely no scientific method was used!

Best

Sonya Morath

"Can you give me an example?"

Sonya's question cuts to the heart of best practice interviewing. Rich, real-life examples are priceless when interviewing.

Maureen Sharib

"What haven't I asked that I should have asked?"

Maureen's question is great. I remember when I first heard this question and I've often used it since. Surprisingly most candidates have not heard it and they often stop to ponder before answering. Use it. You'll be surprised about what you learn.

Best Worst

Lisa Rosendahl over at HR Thoughts

I was new to a company and on an interview team where the practice was for each member of the team to bring 2-3 of their own questions to ask during the interview. Imagine my surprise when across the table one interviewer asked an applicant, "If you could be any type of a drug, which one would you be?" My surprise then was nothing compared to my surprise when the applicant answered, "Viagra!" Needless to say, we stopped that practice rather quickly.

What were they thinking? Oh, I know the answer to that one...

Sherry Karr

"What is your weakness?" is annoying. I really tire of the stock answers "turning weaknesses into strengths" blah, blah, blah. Oh good, at least it shows the candidate knows how to search interviewing help sites. Whoopie!

Whoopie indeed! Let's take this opportunity to retire forever the weakness question. Let's do the same for strengths. There are so many better questions to ask to get useful information about strengths and weaknesses.

Thank you again to everyone who responded with their best and worst questions. Much appreciated!