Probing Effectively

March 3, 2008 at 9:43 pm · Filed under advice and tagged: probing

On reading the title you might think this is a blog post for proctologists. Open and closed probing is a technique that I learned while taking the Professional Selling Skills course through Achieve Global years ago. Why is it important to recruiters? The ability to ask questions effectively is important and through a series of open and closed probe questions you can gather important information on a specific candidate. I have a close friend who works downtown and she asks excellent open and closed probe questions without even knowing it. In PSS or (Professional Selling Skills) I learned it is important to build a clear, complete, and mutual understanding of the customers needs. The same applies in your job as a recruiter because the candidate is the customer as well as the client. The ability to probe in a certain way in order to facilitate an open exchange of information is your goal.

Open probes are general questions used to obtain information and yet open that exchange of information which will lead you to ask closed probe questions which will be more specific in nature. Recruiters should have a list of questions written down and these will be open probe questions which will lead you to ask closed probe questions. Why is it important to probe effectively? As recruiters we often get caught in the trap of becoming salesmen. When you become more engaged in finding out about the candidate then it gives you not only a better picture of them but it prepares you for those out of the blue questions from your client or hiring manager about the candidate. You can never go wrong by asking too many questions but you can have a disaster when you do not ask enough. This blog post is not going to make you the master of open and closed probes but it will get you to think about how and what you ask and why. In asking your questions relevance will direct whether to ask another closed probe question to investigate further or ask an open probe question to change direction. Now that I think about it maybe I should have titled this article” Mental Proctology”. If you ever wanted to become a better interviewer just think about open and closed probes and let the questions develop naturally through this technique.
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