Tips and short questions to ask in a company interview

You have probably already seen this type of interview on YouTube and social media. It is now widely used by companies to highlight their clients or employees.

The goal is to offer less formal and more playful interviews, in order to create dynamic content with lively sequences and engaging music.

• Example: a sandwich interview with François Hollande

• The Fast & Curious interview with one of our team members

• Another example: Édouard Baer

You may think this interview format with short questions to ask is mainly aimed at a young B2C audience and wouldn’t fit into your brand’s corporate video strategy. But this format is becoming increasingly successful across all distribution channels, and more and more companies are drawing inspiration from these formats.

In France, 86.9% of internet users watch videos, confirming the effectiveness of this type of interview format with short questions to ask, especially on YouTube. Creating this kind of video allows you to produce content that is engaging, dynamic and above all natural since the interviewee doesn’t know the questions in advance.

Today, you no longer need to rely on a production agency to create this type of content. No worries: using an online video editing tool, you can quickly take control. In this article, we guide you step by step so you can, in the future, streamline and scale the creation of this type of interview.

How to create an interview with short questions to ask using an online video editing tool? Here are all our tips 👇

What goal should you set for your interview with short questions to ask?

What exactly are you aiming for?

• The opportunity to introduce your new executives?
• Present new hires internally to break the ice?
• Interview clients in a fun and less formal way?

What strategy is the interview part of?

• Snackable content for social media, to drive interaction and grow your community?
• Internal onboarding, to help new employees integrate more easily?
• Teasing upcoming events by interviewing participants?

Every video should be part of an overall video strategy. That’s why you need a clear and measurable objective before starting anything.

Moreover, video is highly popular: every month, 52.5 million people in France watch online video content a huge audience to reach with a stylish and authentic format.

How to prepare the script and storyboard for your interview with short questions to ask ?

It is recommended to break your video into multiple scenes, like a storyboard or comic strip, where each frame represents a scene with:

• the setting
• the positioning of the participants
• the text that will appear on screen
• the choice of music
• the speaking time
• the motion design elements…

In this type of video, the focus is mainly on alternating between question sequences and answer sequences. The question sequences usually feature the question displayed in large text, where you can add motion design to highlight your visual identity. The answer sequences, on the other hand, are filmed.

Don’t forget to add subtitles, so the video can be watched without sound.

It’s also a great opportunity to capture fun moments and laughter, as you can see in this example from Icademie, a distance learning center:

Write your short questions to ask before creating the interview

For example, if you choose a Fast & Curious interview format, you’ll need to write questions as dilemmas like a game highlighting their tastes and passions, which is a great way to break the ice, so the interviewee is encouraged to respond directly and naturally. The topics can change, but each question should lead to a simple answer, without being too difficult or overcomplicated. The person should not know the short questions to ask in advance, to keep the authenticity.

These short questions to ask can help you learn more about your new hires, for example, by highlighting their tastes and passions a great way to break the ice. This kind of funny interview also shows that, even though someone joins a company to work and achieve results, it’s still possible to grow in a positive and friendly environment.

If you create an interview with short questions to ask for your executives or managers

You have to know that executives or managers have different backgrounds and greater responsibilities. So make sure to adapt your short questions to ask, for example:

For executives or managers:

• Think or act?
• Solo worker or team-oriented?
• Horizontal or vertical management?
• Kindness or high standards?
• In your bubble or highly social?
• Conceptual or hands-on?
• Slack or Lively?
• Gmail or Outlook?
• Microsoft or Mac?
• Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos?
• Bernard Arnault or Xavier Niel?
• Field or office?
• Email or face-to-face communication?
• Negotiation or authority?

If you’re creating a Fast & Curious for HR:

• In-person or remote interviews?
• First-name basis or formal address?
• Formal or casual dress code?
• Teamdeck or Payfit?
• Onboarding or offboarding?
• Microlearning or long online training?

If you’re creating a Fast & Curious for marketing & communication:

• English terms or French equivalents?
• Events or digital?
• Prospecting or brand awareness?
• Newsletter or flyer?
• Facebook or Instagram?
• Snapchat or TikTok?
• HubSpot or Mailchimp?
• Conference or webinar?
• Blog or vlog?
• GIFs or emojis?
• Product or service?

If you’re interviewing developers:

• The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars?
• Star Wars or Back to the Future?
• Harry Potter or Game of Thrones?
• Super Mario or Sonic?
• Zelda or Pokémon Stadium?
• Pokémon Red or Pokémon Blue?
• World of Warcraft or Age of Empires?
• Windows 98 or Windows 10?
• Princess Leia or Daenerys?
• Frodo Baggins or Marty McFly?
• Batman or the Joker?
• GTO or One Piece?
• Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist?

Vous pouvez également réaliser des interviews groupées, dans cet exemple d’Axess :

How to choose and brief the interviewee?

Not everyone feels comfortable in front of a camera, especially in a more dynamic interview with short questions to ask or will be able to play the role. Most importantly, don’t force anyone to be interviewed if they seem uncomfortable. The interview with short questions to ask should be based on willingness, and on the following criteria:

• being comfortable speaking
• looking at the camera, or being able to focus on a fixed point during filming
• understanding the framing
• positioning themselves correctly in front of the camera
• remembering to wear a lavalier microphone
• speaking slowly to be clearly understood
• being able to adapt to different situations if needed
• respecting any other elements of the script

Where should you film your interview with short questions to ask?

This is a good question, your workspace can make all the difference.

If you’re creating an interview with short questions to ask in a recruitment context, the goal is to make people want to apply and join your team. Your office, layout, and decor all reflect who you are. For example, a room with plants will feel much more relaxed than a grey background.

In this interview with Sophie, our Customer Success Manager, we chose to film outdoors to take advantage of natural sunlight and show another side of La Cargo:

Edit your video sequences online and give as much importance to post-production as to filming

Once everything has been filmed, it’s time to take control of the editing tool. With Pitchy, you can choose a template designed for this type of interview with short questions to ask, a ready-made format that you can customize by adding your own visual and textual elements:

• logo
• subtitles
• transition sequences
• your own motion design

Certain post-production elements will clearly enhance the dynamism of your video:

• music : you have access to royalty-free tracks on Pitchy
• fast-paced sequencing to create rhythm and ensure the content is quickly watched
• smooth transitions between questions

3 video interviews with short questions to ask to show your company

These 3 formats are ideal for reflecting your company culture:

• The 3QA interview (“3 Questions to…”)

This format allows you 3 short questions to ask that help the person introduce themselves, talk about their role and background, and share insights about ongoing projects within their team.

• One Minute With

This format offers a quick immersion into an employee’s daily life, filmed with a camera or even a smartphone. The person talks about their routine, what they do first thing in the morning, and the key skills required for their job.

• The Job Clash

With this format, you can adopt a lighter tone while staying within a professional context. The idea is to bring 2 people into friendly opposition from the same team with different roles or from different teams. By answering short questions to ask, they try to convince viewers to join their team or department.

The choice of format depends on how you want to present relationships between employees within the same team, department, or across different departments.

It’s essential to highlight employees’ experiences and perceptions in their professional relationships. You can also use the Job Clash format to shed light on areas of improvement in workplace relationships.

Fast Life, to better understand the personality of your future employees

Like the Fast & Curious format, Fast Life is a video interview format created by Konbini. The structure is similar, but the short questions to ask don’t require predefined answers and give the employee more freedom to respond in their own way. If you’re a business leader (or recruiter) and want to learn more about an employee’s tastes and key life experiences, this format is ideal. It’s also a great option if you’re looking to bring more creativity and differentiation into your recruitment strategy. The Fast Life format can strongly enhance your employer brand and highlight a more human approach.

Discover the Fast Life interview of François Civil by Konbini:

The Sandwich Interview: a creative format to highlight your company’s values

If you want to explore a serious topic in authentic way, the Konbini sandwich interview format is a great option to present your company culture differently. The goal: start by talking about sandwiches, then use that as a way to reveal real insights and opinions about the company and life in general. This format allows you to present your company and your employees in a more original way. You can use it by defining a playful theme in your script, connected to how your company works. This type of interview blends professional and personal elements, which helps the perspectives shared about the company. The theme should be as relevant as possible to the role or industry. For example, you could highlight the unique talents of an employee through this format.

Examples of short questions to ask for a sandwich interview:

• How many sandwiches do you eat at the office each week?
• What’s your team’s favorite sandwich?
• Have you ever argued with your colleagues about a sandwich?
• What’s the one sandwich no one at the company has tried?

To get a better idea, check out the sandwich interview of Gérard Darmon:

What is a GRWM (Get Ready With Me) video in a corporate context?

This employee interview format is ideal for a more intimate and personalized approach. It helps show the overall lifestyle of one or several employees within a company. The interviewee can be filmed before, during, and even after their workday. You could title your video “A Day at Work,” for example.

By showing a more personal side of the employee’s routine, the video feels more authentic

Discover in this video “A Day in the Life of a CSM”, created on Pitchy, the video creation and editing tool for businesses.

Why use a dilemma interview for onboarding a new employee?

It’s a great way to break the ice, far from traditional, formal interviews

The goal of this interview with short questions to ask is to move away from rigid norms, especially in the workplace. With the rise of startup culture, hierarchical structures are becoming more flexible along with a change in tone.

The onboarding can be a bit delicate, especially for new hires, as they need to introduce themselves and open up to people they haven’t met yet.

With a more informal format like this, you help put people at ease by introducing them in a friendly and supportive environment.

As a result, your onboarding starts on the right foot and makes integration easier. After watching the interview with short questions to ask, your teams will already know more about the new hire.

How does the dilemma interview reinforce your company’s authenticity?

Using this format also says a lot about your company. Presenting new employees through video is a real asset from an HR perspective.

It shows that you truly want to get to know your new hires tastes, interests, and personalities outside of work.

It’s also a great opportunity for short questions to ask about where they come from, their hobbies, places they’ve lived, and more.

Why is the dilemma interview a strong HR snack content format?

Snack content is designed to be consumed quickly, especially when your audience is on the move during their commute, whether in the morning on the way to work or in the evening.

If you’re hiring new talent, these interviews with short questions to ask can attract candidates who want to join your journey. Through this format, you reveal a part of your company’s identity to a wider audience. Candidates will see that your organization values the onboarding process by creating authentic content for the occasion.

In addition, 70% of videos are watched on mobile devices, and users’ attention often doesn’t go beyond the first 8 seconds. All the more reason to use short, impactful, and accessible formats.

If you share these interview videos with short questions to ask on a careers page or social media, remember to include subtitles so they can be watched without sound. You can even turn them into a mini-series with several episodes.

To go further with your employer brand, explore: Video: a must-have for your employer branding.

Are you thinking of creating this type of video interview or other social videos with your employees to produce brand content and boost your brand awareness in just a few minutes?

It’s possible with Pitchy, which can be used by multiple people across your organization. Ask for a demo now to learn more!

Create your own interview videos with short questions to ask for many occasions in the coming years (for recruitment or onboarding, for example!