The best talent evaluators insist they learn much more about a person’s abilities from their questions than from their answers. In an article written by Shane Snow and featured by Fast Company magazine, these are among the key points made:

o Don’t ramble on — terminate the sentence at the question mark.
o Get comfortable with silence.
o Start with “who, what, when, where, how, or why” to obtain more meaningful answers.
o Don’t fish for the answer you want.
o Stop nodding if you don’t understand the response — ask a follow-up Q instead.
o If you get a non-answer, approach it again from a different angle.
o Rephrase the answer in your own words.
o Don’t be afraid to ask “dumb” questions.

To read the complete article, please click here.

Shane Snow is a New York City-based technology writer and cofounder of Contently.com.