Position Name: Human Resources Director
Interviewer
Candidate Name
Interview Date
Introductory Questions
– Interviewer(s) share name, role, tenure, and hand business cards for thank you messages – Share a brief overview of the company
– Give Candidate the Job Description, highlight Job Purpose, Schedule/Travel, Major Challenges & Key Decisions, and Physical Requirements
Walk us through your professional background.
What type of environment do you thrive in? What type of management style do you enjoy most?
What are your short and long-term professional goals?
What do you know about our organization?
Transitional & Verification Questions
– Clarify any unclear information from resume or application
– Verify availability for work hours and schedule, start date, and other important details
What interests you about this role?
What interests you about working for us?
Technical Questions
– Ask job related questions, based on skills and competencies needed for the role
– Ask open ended questions that allow candidates to tell a story about a specific example
– Ask 5-10 questions based on the role and how much time you have (~3-4 minutes per question)
– Listen for recent examples, details, consistency, the candidate’s role in the story, and teamwork
– Take notes and ask clarifying questions as follow-ups
What specific areas (related to the position) do you consider yourself the most knowledgeable? What areas have you had less experience or do not feel as comfortable with?
What has given you the greatest sense of achievement at work and why?
Behavioral / Situational Questions
– Ask job related questions, based on skills and competencies needed for the role
– Ask open ended questions that allow candidates to tell a story about a specific example
– Ask 5-10 questions based on the role and how much time you have (~3-4 minutes per question)
– Listen for recent examples, details, consistency, the candidate’s role in the story, and teamwork
– Take notes and ask clarifying questions as follow-ups. Follow up questions may include:
- Tell us more about the action you took and the outcome.
- What did you say at that point?
- How did you react to that situation?
- Explain your role in more detail.
- Tell me in detail what steps you took.
- And what was the result?
- Describe the obstacles you faced in getting it done.
- What other options did you consider?
- Why do you think you reacted as you did?
- How do you think others felt about your actions at the time?
- Were you satisfied with the outcome of your actions?
- If the same or a similar situation presented itself, what would you do differently?
Adaptability
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with changes in organizational direction that impacted your work. How did you respond?
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Tell me about a situation where you were under a great deal of pressure because of numerous demands competing for your time and attention. How did you resolve the situation?
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Business Acumen
Give me an example of a time when you had to reduce expenses. How did you determine where to cut costs? What was the impact?
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How do you ensure that your work and goals are aligned with corporate or strategic goals? Tell me about a time when you had to pay particular attention to this.
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Change Management
Tell me about a situation where you needed to adjust quickly to a significant change in team or department priorities? What did you do? What was the outcome?
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Describe a past event in which you helped to facilitate change in your organization.
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Change is inevitable in the workplace. Describe a past event in which you helped to facilitate change in your organization. What process did you use to evaluate the impact or results of the change? How did you prepare and support employees impacted by the change?
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Coaching & Mentoring
How would you differentiate coaching from managing?
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What is your approach to coaching? Give me an example of a coaching situation you have been involved in.
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Describe when a coaching opportunity was successful/not successful. What made it successful/not successful?
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Collaboration
Describe a high-pressure work situation and how you handled it. Tell me what happened, who was involved and what you did in terms of problem solving.
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Describe an example where you enlisted active participation of others to solve a problem.
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Tell me about a time when you worked with people outside your work group to get information or ideas. What did you do? What was the outcome or result?
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Communication
Describe a recent time when you heard through the grapevine information which was untrue or classified. What was the situation and how did you handle it?
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Describe an example of when you have been called upon to present in front of a group. How did you prepare? Was the presentation a success? How could you tell?
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How do you ensure that your writing is clear and informative? Give me a specific example.
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Tell me about a recent time when an e-mail or verbal conversation was misinterpreted by your team or employees. What was the situation and the outcome?
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Describe a recent time when you needed to withhold information from your team or direct reports. What was the situation and how did you handle it?
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Compassion
How do you balance being empathetic towards a frustrated client while simultaneously keeping the company’s goals and objectives first?
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Tell me about a time that you made a decision you knew was in the best interest of the business, its customers, or your team – but it was inconvenient and caused more work for you and your team.
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Conflict Management
Please give me an example of how you’ve rallied others to act on ideas that they did not understand or agree with. How did you deal with pushback or resistance? How did you accomplish the goal?
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Tell me about a difficulty you encountered in working with another department. What did you do to improve the situation?
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Give me an example of a time when you confronted a negative attitude successfully.
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Tell me about a time when you successfully challenged another’s idea.
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Critical Thinking
When a decision is needed, what process do you use to come to the right response?
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Describe for me a recent time when you needed to make a job-related decision but did not have all of the information you needed. How did you go about completing the task?
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Decision Making
Describe a decision you had to make when you were really torn between the alternatives. How did you finally decide? What was the outcome?
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At times, we may need to interact with a peer who struggles making decisions. Give me an example of a time when this has happened and how you approached it.
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Walk me through the last big decision you made. What were the circumstances? What were the alternatives? What was the consequence of your decision?
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Delegation
When delegating, are you more comfortable giving the person to whom you delegated full authority or closely monitoring progress? Give me an example of when this worked well/didn’t work well.
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Tell me about a time you delegated a task or project to someone and were met with resistance. What did you do?
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Describe how you set expectations when delegating and how you have monitored progress. Give me an example of a time when this worked successfully/not successfully.
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Developing Others
What are the key components of a professional development plan?
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Describe a training plan or onboarding plan you’ve created for a team member or direct report.
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Tell us about a time when you customized development for a specific person’s personal and professional aspirations.
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How do you go about assessing team member’s development needs and goals?
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Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity
How would you contribute to fostering a healthy diversity, equity, and inclusion culture within our company? What initiatives would you implement?
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What have you done to foster diversity, inclusion, and equity within your team?
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Emotional Intelligence
How do you determine what information and when it is time to update upper management?
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What sort of impression do you think you have made with your executive-level management team? Why do you say that?
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Describe a time when you needed to react to an emergency situation. How did you respond? What was the result?
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What has been the most difficult criticism for you to receive?
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Initiative
What self-development activities have you done on your own during the last three years?
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What types of work projects get you really excited? We all “geek out” about different things. What do you geek out about?
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Integrity
Tell me about a time you were new to a company or work group. What steps did you take to build trust with coworkers and/or staff?
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We generally recognize that policies and procedures are necessary for workplace efficiency. Tell me about a time when you had to work under a policy or procedure you did not agree with. What did you do?
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What do you do when your manager directs you to do something that you know is against company policy and practices?
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Judgement
Tell us about a mistake that you made, how you took ownership, and what steps you took to make it right.
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Share a success story about balancing personal and professional demands to maintain a healthy balance.
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Leadership
How are you more self-aware now than earlier in your career? Are there certain tools you use to help in your leadership self-awareness?
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Give me an example of a piece of constructive feedback you received about your leadership style. How did you respond?
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What makes you an effective leader? Why do you think people want to work for you?
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Managing Others
Have you ever had to discipline or counsel an employee? What was the nature of the discipline? What steps did you take? How did you prepare yourself?
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What are the key elements to providing effective feedback? Give an example of how you have used these successfully.
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What is your approach in giving difficult feedback? Give me an example of a time when that worked well/didn’t work well.
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What policies and practices have you put in place to help structure the talent aspects of the organization?
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To get the most from your staff, describe the amount of structure, direction, and freedom you give?
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What have you done to develop a successor for your position?
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Performance Management
Share your philosophy or approach to knowing if a performance issue is a training issue or not.
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What is your preferred cadence for meeting with direct reports and providing performance feedback.
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Describe how you would initiate a conversation with an employee who has requested a promotion but it’s not supported by your leadership team.
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Tell us about a star performer you managed. How did you keep them motivated and rewarded?
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Planning & Organization
What tools do you use to plan your day? How do these help you determine priorities? How do you keep others informed?
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How do you assure that you do not get so caught up in “task” that you lose the big picture?
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Give me an example of a time when you had to organize and plan the work of others. How did you go about it?
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Describe a situation that didn’t go as planned. What would you have done differently?
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Problem Solving
Tell me about a time when you had to problem solve with a group. What role did you play and what was the outcome?
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Describe a problem you solved before anyone realized it was a problem.
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Tell me about a problem that needed fixing where you weren’t sure how to approach it.
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Project Management
What is the scope of the projects you have managed? Pick one and briefly describe the process and end result? What was something unanticipated that occurred?
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Relationship Building
How does one go about building rapport quickly and maintaining successful business relationships? Give examples of how you made these work for you.
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Tell us about a customer relationship that was challenging to establish and maintain. How did you resolve the situation?
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Results Orientation
What results have you achieved that you are most proud of?
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How have you emphasized the achievement of your organization’s goals and core values?
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Give me a specific example that demonstrates your reputation for success and quality performance.
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Self Awareness & Development
How do you measure your own success?
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What have you done in the last year to upgrade or improve your skills?
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Have you received any sort of systematic or regular feedback (360-degree or otherwise) from direct reports, clients, peers, supervisors, etc.? If so, what did you learn?
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How do you keep up with current business trends?
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What are your current business-related subscriptions and memberships?
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Strategic Thinking
Describe a decision you had to make that had a significant financial impact on the organization.
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What is the most strategic program you have implemented during the past 12 months?
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How do you use data in your strategic planning?
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How do you go about identifying opportunities and roadblocks in your department’s key strategies?
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Talk about a time you were implementing a strategy and had to revise it or change direction.
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Talent Acquisition
What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in hiring someone?
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What is your personal philosophy to hiring external talent versus promoting from within?
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Time Management
What are you most likely to delegate?
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When was the last time you missed a deadline? What were the circumstances?
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Are you better managing multiple priorities or one at a time? Tell me about a time you were successful/not successful.
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Teamwork/Team Building
Tell me about a time you worked on a project with a team that resulted in a successful outcome, what contributed to the success of the project?
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Please give me an example of how you have contributed to the culture of previous teams.
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Describe a time your team was behind on a project and didn’t seem as though others shared your sense of urgency. What strategies did you implement to try and bring the project up to speed?
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Describe your most recent conflict within a team setting because of a miscommunication and how you were able to solve it.
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Candidate’s Questions
– Be sure to leave time for their questions, generally 1-3
– Paint a positive but honest view of the pros and cons of the work and culture
Notes
Closing Questions
– Describe where you are in the process, next steps, and when they can expect to hear back
– Ask if they have any final remarks
What is one thing I should know about you that I haven’t asked?
What could you bring to this position that other candidates could not?
What do you hope to find in our organization that you don’t have now?
What is the best thing a previous employer did that you wish everyone did?
Interviewer Assessment
Enter your overall assessment about the candidate’s knowledge, skills, abilities, and fit for this position.
Would you recommend this candidate advance in the process?