Types of Questions

There are various types of questions:

Open-ended questions - broad in nature, ‘opens the door’, generates free thinking, allows freedom in responding /determining the amount and kind of info to give
“Tell me about yourself.”
“Tell me about your administrative duties."
“How would you characterize your managing style?”

Closed-ended questions - restrictive in nature ‘keeps door fairly closed’, asks for narrow, structured response-often a single, one-syllable, direct answer. Limits answer options, often supplying all possible answers in the question
“How long have you held this position?”
“Did Ms. Adams hire you?”
“ How would you rank these in order of your frequency of using them on the job? …speaking writing listening reading”

Direct questions - requests verifiable facts/statistics, info, opinion, or conclusions
Requires specific responses
“What company did you last work for?”
“What do you think was the major reason for the restructuring of your company?”

Indirect questions -does not require a question mark; yet, it encourages discussion of a particular topic
“I wonder what it's like to travel on the job.”
“It must be at least a two-hour drive for you to get to your office.”

Double questions - asking two questions with the second almost identical to the first or asking two questions with the second dissimilar to the first or either question incomplete “Are you going to retire? Are you going to leave this position?”
“Where is corporate headquarters? Is it far from here?”

Leading questions - leads the interviewee to a response; the interviewer suggests implicitly or explicitly the answer he/she expects/desires
“You like close detail work, don’t you?”
“You don't really feel that tax shelters are justified, do you?”

Neutral questions - gives the interviewee freedom to respond as he/she desires
“How do you feel about close detail work?”
“What is your opinion of tax shelters?”

Mirroring (reflective) or summarizing - reflects or summarizes a series of questions and answers or pieces of information to insure accurate understanding. Used to acquire more detail, to get the interviewee to expand on an answer, to keep the interviewee talking
“Okay, Bill, let me see if I have this correct. First, you …?”
“You have never been a salesperson before?”

Primary question - introduces topic of discussion/new areas within a topic [or category such as education, experience, etc.]
“Tell me about your last accounting position.”
“What advice can you give me about breaking into this field?
Secondary question - follows up / probes response to primary question or another secondary question Useful in “digging” for reasons, supporting ideas, justifications [why?], personal feelings
Primary: “During your academic preparation for this career, what courses did you find most helpful?”
Secondary: “Of those , which was most helpful?”
Primary: “Are there any courses that you didn't take but now wish you had?”
Secondary: “How would that course have helped?”

Secondary questions are useful when interviewee's response is
a. superficial
“Tell me more about …”
“What happened after …?”
“How did you react to . . .?”
“Explain further the point ….”
“Could you give me an example of that?”
“Would you mind telling me more about your interest in …?”
b. vague
“I'm not sure I understand your point.”
“What did you have in mind when you said
c. suggestible (suggests a feeling / attitude)
“Please define ‘middle management’ for me.”
“Just how large is your department?”
“How do you feel about that [react to that]?”
“Why do you think that happened?”
“What do you mean by ‘seems’?”