I am interviewing on Thursday for an IT Officer to join the department. We had a decent batch of applications and have whittled that down to a strong shortlist. I am looking forward to meeting the candidates, any of whom on paper at least should be able to do the job very well. The trouble is that, as with the Highlander film franchise, there can be only one. Furthermore, HR rules dictate that we can’t just let them lose with swords until only one is left undecapitated (not least because such a display of ability would not bear much relationship to the job description).

We will have to resort to asking intelligent questions and using that to inform our choice. I have a draft list of ideas I was working on this morning but then came across a list of Weird Questions Asked During A Job Interview this afternoon. In case any of the candidates are reading this (one of those from the last set of interviews I did had tracked down my blog; an impressive display of thoroughness although, in a strong field, not quite enough to swing it for him) I had better not be too specific. We probably won’t ask too many left field questions and almost certainly won’t directly lift one from that list but I am hoping for an interesting set of discussions on Thursday and a chance for each candidate to display a creative spark as well as relevant knowledge.