Improve Your QUESTIONING SKILLS –

          If you are ambitious you must learn to ask hard questions. A good questioner and a skillful listener will go far. Rolling On 34 and 35 go together if you seek a top job.

        A skillful questioner learns much.

        Ask basic searching questions. They are easier to handle than mistakes.

A handful of tips to improve the way you question

* Put the person at ease first

        Don’t be in a hurry.

        Start with a comfortable question or two.

        Chat and begin by asking questions that are simple and easy to answer. “Where did you go to school?”  “Where did you grow up?”

* Ask direct open-ended questions

        Open-ended questions invite a longer reply and aim to get people talking. “What did you like about the office social last week?” A closed question will get you only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. “Did you attend the social last week?”

* Keep your questions simple

        Professional interviewers use simple questions such as ‘What’, ‘Why’, ‘When’, Where’, How’, Who’ and ‘How much?’.

Best remembered by learning a simple verse from the author Rudyard Kipling.

” I keep six honest serving-men

(they taught me all I knew)

Their names were What and Why and When

And Where and How and Who.”

*  Try some ‘suppose’, ‘probe’ and ‘agreement’ questions

        “If you were managing. What things would you change?”

        “You said you were not happy with your working conditions. Why is that?”

        “What made you say that?”

        “That sounds a good idea. So you think we could do things better. Tell us How.“

        ” Who does it better?”

        “How would you like a job in another department? Would that suit you?”

        Use these keywords to get facts – What, When Why, Where, and How Much?

 * Pause after asking your question

        By keeping quiet you put the onus to respond on the other person. 

        Never answer your own question. This is a great temptation. Take care you don’t make this mistake.

        Try to summarise and repeat the answer given.  

        By giving your interpretation of the answer allows the other person a chance to amplify, to explain what they said, and to make any corrections or alterations.

        Avoid evaluating answers but express your gratitude for the response to your question.

        An unexpected or a vague answer can be valuable as it could indicate you may have a communication problem.

Geoffrey Moss(mossassociates.co.nz)

“Without the right question, you will never get the right answer”

Source: “Persuasive Ways. ‘Tricks of the trade’ to get your ideas across”. First published by  Moss Associates Ltd., New Zealand and in Chinese by the Shanghai People’s Publishing House, the Singapore Institute of Management, Kogan Page Ltd, U.K and in Hungarian by Bagolyvar Konyvkiado.  Also published as the “Secrets of Persuasion” by Cengage Learning Asia and as an e-book and sold by Amazon.com.