When you’re looking for good questions to ask an interview candidate, it’s important to ask questions that can be repeated. That means every prompt must produce job-relevant evidence, not just chemistry or cleverness. The team also needs a shared baseline to evaluate the candidate and preserve their own judgment. A few key rules of thumb for creating a consistent set of questions.
Core Set by Role or Interview Stage
While we have provided specific prompts, we’ll walk through them in order below. You may use these as core set by role or interview stage; you may modify how you phrase your question if appropriate, but try to keep the intent of the question the same. For example, if a hiring manager wants to know what a candidate is looking for in a new opportunity, this could be framed as “what do you want to do next?” or simply “what interests you about our company.”
Also consider tailoring technical questions to the stack. But make sure to preserve the core intent.
Minor adaptations are acceptable, but never change the intent behind the prompt. Instead, adapt the wording or context. Follow-ups can be used to clarify any missing pieces of evidence.
Now let’s go through the 10-point checklist.
Motivation (Why Did You Apply?)
Asking this question is intended to learn what they wanted to do next. It might seem strange, but this is one of the best places to look for signals of alignment with the company’s mission or values. However, the best answer will often include why they applied to this specific company, rather than another organization that was also hiring for similar roles.
Obstacle (Tell Me About a Past Example Where You Faced a Big Obstacle)
In the absence of other evidence, this prompt asks for a detailed past example. This provides evidence about what problems the person solves, how they respond to setbacks, and how effective their communication and leadership skills are when under pressure.
Self-Directed Learning (How Do You Learn New Things?)
This prompt allows us to examine the candidate’s method of learning. It’s also a great way to discover their resourcefulness in seeking answers to questions.
Strengths and Improvement (What Would You Say Are Your Greatest Strengths? And What Areas Do You Want To Improve In?)
These two questions serve different purposes. First, asking what strengths the person has gives an idea of how the individual sees themselves, which is useful when comparing them against other potential hires. Second, asking what areas they would like to improve on shows self-reflection and growth mindset.
Role-Specific Scenario (Tell Me About a Time When You Made a Quick Decision With Limited Information)
This question tests the ability to assess a situation quickly, and act independently without much information.
Leadership Or Initiative (Can You Tell Me About a Time When You Took Initiative Without Being Asked?)
While leadership can be shown by people who hold formal titles, initiative and leadership don’t necessarily require that title. This allows for some creativity in how candidates demonstrate their capabilities.
Career Trajectory (What Was Your Career Like Before You Came To [Company]?)
If a candidate says they’re going to be working in marketing at a startup, it’s worth knowing how they got there. It’s possible they’ve been applying their marketing skills for years, or maybe they started from scratch, trying out new things all the time. Either way, the candidate should understand what it took to get where they are now, and how those experiences will help them grow here.
Company or Role Research (How Did You Research Our Company/Role?)
Candidates can research companies and roles online, so it’s good to find out whether they actually did their homework. If they didn’t, it might be an indication of how committed they really are to being hired.
Collaboration, Tension, Disagreement (How Do You Deal With Disagreements In The Workplace?)
Conflict is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be toxic. People need to know how to work with others while keeping their goals in mind. Candidates might tell stories about times they had trouble getting along with colleagues, or about situations in which disagreements led to improved productivity or innovation.
Skill-Based Verification (Do You Have Experience Using X Software Tool?)
Rather than asking someone what tools or software they know, we want to verify that claim by asking for an instance of them using those skills in a real-world situation. Candidates might say they can use Excel well, but that doesn’t prove they can create pivot tables, summarize data or draw insights from charts and graphs.
Work Style (Describe Your Preferred Work Style)
Some people prefer a structured environment, while others thrive when given a lot of flexibility. Asking how someone prefers to work helps determine whether their style fits within the culture of the company.
Strong Answer Evidence
Strong evidence will follow a simple structure:
Situation – Describe a specific situation.
Task – Explain what the person was supposed to do.
Action – Describe what actions the person took.
Result – Explain what happened as a result.
For example, a candidate might say: “I had a project that involved collecting sales data from multiple sources, summarizing it into an Excel file, then drawing insights from that file. I used pivot tables to analyze the data and came up with several suggestions to increase customer spending.” The interviewer should look for the specifics of the situation, such as the particular sales data, what the candidate did on their own, what resources they had access to, how they decided on a solution, and what results they achieved.
There is no magic number of points per competency, although each competency should be weighted equally. There’s more than enough room for overlap, but it should be documented as part of the evaluation process. For example, a candidate might show high levels of curiosity and independence, both of which are desirable traits in most jobs.
Warning Signs
There are several warning signs that should be documented during the evidence review process:
Vague Claims – Candidates who aren’t specific about what they’ve done usually won’t provide meaningful insight either. While it’s true that nobody knows everything, vague claims are often a sign of lack of substance.
Hypothetical Only Answers – A strong candidate should offer observable actions, not hypotheticals. An interviewer might ask, “what would you do differently if you knew you were going to fail?” but the better question is what actually happened, and what steps the candidate took to fix the problem. Otherwise, the interviewer will have to score based on impression instead of evidence.
Blame – No one likes to hear blame assigned to others. The goal of the interview process is to understand what the person does well and where they might improve, not to assign fault.
No Measurable Result – Again, we want to see how the person solved a problem, and what happened as a result. If they can’t describe a measurable or clearly observable result, that’s a concern. We want to know what difference the candidate made.
No Role Connection – We want to know how the candidate’s background connects to the role they’re being interviewed for. Is there anything in their resume or interview that ties together?
Rehearsed Strengths Without Examples – Some people memorize responses to common interview questions and give rehearsed answers. These should be avoided because they’re unlikely to reflect the actual behavior of the candidate. A behavioral response should reflect how the person acted before they knew they were being interviewed.
Polished Answers May Not Match Work Behavior – As we’ve discussed before, it’s hard to separate what a candidate actually does on the job from what they do in an interview. But we can reduce the chance of polished answers by asking for measurable results. Behavioral responses should reflect what the person actually does, not what they hope to accomplish.
Behavioral vs Situational Prompts
There are three types of prompts: behavioral, situational, and hypothetical. Each is designed to extract specific types of information.
Situational questions fit realistic role scenarios. They allow the candidate to think through a problem and explain how they’d respond, allowing the interviewer to gauge the candidate’s ability to think quickly and make independent decisions.
Behavioral evidence tells the interviewer how the candidate actually acted in previous situations. Because behavioral evidence is drawn from real life, it’s easier to determine what the candidate actually does. Situational evidence should always be combined with behavioral evidence to give the hiring manager a complete picture of how the candidate behaves.
Because situational prompts rely on the candidate’s imagination, they’re sometimes used to test how the candidate would behave if placed in a hypothetical situation. The interviewer is essentially asking the candidate to imagine how they’d react to a scenario that mirrors their current position.
Unfortunately, this approach opens the door to rehearsed answers that don’t reflect how the candidate would act in reality. So unless the interviewer specifically requests future actions, situational evidence shouldn’t replace behavioral evidence.
However, situational evidence should still be considered during the decision-making process. The best way to reduce the chance of a polished answer is to pair it with a behavioral example from the candidate’s past. This will give the hiring manager a clearer idea of how the candidate is likely to behave.
The Bottom Line
A good hiring manager should know exactly what they’re looking for in a candidate, and how to ask the right questions. Hiring managers should focus on what the candidate does well, and how that contributes to the success of the organization. It’s easy to forget that the hiring manager’s role is to identify the best candidate, not simply to choose between options.
That said, a great interview isn’t a popularity contest, nor should the hiring manager ever allow themselves to be swayed by personality. Hiring managers must be prepared to make tough calls, even if it means rejecting a great candidate. Ultimately, the hiring manager’s responsibility is to select the best person for the job.
Lightweight Scoring Discipline
Interviewers may rate the candidate based on the questions asked and how the candidate responded, but should take care to capture the evidence, not their impressions. The scoring discipline should be consistent across all candidates, too.
It may help to create a simple scoring sheet. This should include predefined competency anchors. Each candidate should receive a score based on how well the candidate met the criteria.
The goal of the interview is to determine whether the candidate will be a good fit for the role, and whether he or she’s the best choice among the candidates being interviewed. If the interview is being conducted by multiple hiring managers, they should all score the candidate in the same way. That way, the interview is fair and transparent.
Of course, not all interviews will be structured in this way. Many hiring managers simply conduct interviews and then decide who to hire based on their impressions. But if you’re looking for a lightweight scoring discipline, you can rate each answer against a predetermined list of competencies. Make sure to document the evidence immediately after each interview, so you don’t lose track of what the candidate said or how they responded.
Finally, remember that the interview should be conducted consistently. That means asking the same questions and listening for the same signals each time. If a hiring manager doesn’t follow this rule, it’s impossible to determine who’s best for the job.