Personal interview questions
Personal interview questions help interviewers build rapport with candidates, helping them feel more comfortable and more willing to speak directly about their experience. They can also reveal candidates’ emotional intelligence and soft skills, such as interpersonal communication.
Consider asking these questions:
1. What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
This question can help you assess a candidate’s self-awareness. Applicants can discuss how their strengths align with the role and how they can use them to help the company reach its goals.
The strengths and weaknesses a candidate identifies can help you learn:
- Whether the candidate is self-reflective enough to recognize their weaknesses
- How a candidate is working to improve and refine their skills
- How their areas of expertise could add to your existing teams
2. How would your previous coworkers or managers describe you?
Asking candidates to describe themselves objectively is another way to learn about their character. It may offer insight into their interpersonal and collaboration skills. As a follow-up to candidates’ responses, consider asking for specific examples of peer feedback to get a more accurate evaluation.
3. Tell me something about yourself that isn’t on your resume
Resumes concisely summarize a job seeker’s professional experience, but you may still have questions regarding expertise. The question is purposefully broad to allow the candidate to share something professional or personal. Candidates’ responses and stories can show hiring managers how they might contribute to the company culture.
4. What are you looking for in the next role that you were missing in your previous role?
Pay close attention to how a candidate talks about their former job, such as whether they focus on the positives and address their hopes for the future. Showing respect for their previous employer and workplace may demonstrate considerate behavior and professionalism.
This question may also help you understand whether their expectations match what you can offer, and it can highlight whether they’re motivated by factors like professional development, responsibility, recognition or job satisfaction.
5. What career accomplishment makes you most proud?
Asking the candidate to share a career highlight can show what fulfills them and may help determine whether their values align with your open role. It can also reveal whether they are able to recognize and value their own contributions.
Motivational interview questions
Motivational questions help you assess how invested candidates are in the position. These can be good interview questions to ask candidates to determine their level of commitment and ambition, which may relate to the characteristics required for the position.
You might ask these questions:
6. What are your long-term career goals?
Answers to this question can reveal whether the interviewee’s career goals align with your company’s values and mission. This may also be a good opportunity to discuss what professional and career growth entails within your organization.
7. What areas do you hope to develop or focus on in the coming year?
One of the best interview questions to ask candidates is typically about their professional development goals. For example, they may want to improve a weakness, refine a strength or learn a new skill.
8. What made you want to apply for this position?
This question probes specifics about the role. It can help you assess:
- How carefully they read the job description
- How well they researched the company
- What they’re looking for in an employer
Consider the parallels applicants draw between your company and their career aspirations.
9. Based on your background, what skills or attributes can you add to this team?
Hiring for culture add means identifying candidates who can bring new ideas and ways of thinking to an existing team. This question can prompt a candidate to highlight unique attributes that might enhance your workplace.
10. How would you work toward a promotion in this role?
Forward-thinking applicants with long-term career goals are likely to have an answer to this question. Someone who can realistically assess the growth required for a promotion may be a good addition to a company that prioritizes upward mobility.
Behavioral interview questions
Asking applicants how they’ve behaved in past circumstances or may behave in future situations can help hiring managers evaluate whether their approach is suitable for the role, the team and the company. These types of questions can help gauge how a candidate may work with the team, especially when paired with a consistent scoring rubric.
These are some behavioral interview questions you might ask:
11. Tell me about a difficult work situation you’ve overcome. How did you overcome it?
Challenging circumstances at work typically offer growth opportunities. This question allows candidates to elaborate on their ability to perform under pressure. They might also discuss their problem-solving skills and ability to manage stress at work.
12. Tell me about a time you had a particularly heavy workload. How did you handle it?
Asking this may help determine a candidate’s organizational and time-management skills. The best answers often include examples of how the candidate prioritizes their tasks, adapts to new challenges or works with others to complete the task.
13. Describe a time when you had to work with a colleague whose personality or work style differed from yours
Working well with people, communication styles and personalities is important in nearly every job. This question lets the candidate discuss their teamwork, interpersonal and problem-solving skills, including how they compromise, communicate and collaborate to achieve a goal or task.
Role-specific interview questions
Effective interview questions also assess qualifications specific to the role and help to validate claims made in a candidate’s experience.
These are examples of questions for specific jobs:
- How do you prioritize your sales leads? (Sales representative)
- Can you describe the process you use to prepare a data set for analysis? (Data analyst)
- How do you determine project deadlines and manage scheduling conflicts? (Project manager)
- Can you describe a time when you had to meet tight deadlines and how you managed to deliver on time? (Administrative assistant)
- How do you make sure the content you produce aligns with the brand’s voice and goals? (Content writer)
- What steps do you take to ensure your team follows safety protocols in the workplace? (Warehouse manager)
- How do you handle multiple customer orders during busy shifts without compromising service quality? (Server)
For more role-specific interview questions, search our interview process page for interview questions by title and skill.
“When preparing for an interview, plan to ask all applicants the same set of questions. Also, think of what answers would be ideal to best assess replies to your questions.”
—Joe Scotto, HR leader
How to improve the interview process
Using a virtual interview platform like Indeed Interview can facilitate the interviewing process by helping employers conduct virtual interviews with ease, providing a convenient and effective way to connect with potential candidates. The platform offers advanced scheduling options, automated reminders for the interviewer and interviewee and the flexibility to interview via video or phone.
By using these 20 best candidate interview questions, you can gain valuable insights into applicants’ personal qualities, motivations, behaviors and role-specific competencies. Consistent application may also improve your interview process and lead to better hiring decisions.
