Questions relating to organisational ability

How do you organise your day / department / team?

You can use one or all of the above depending on the level of candidate. For junior roles you will only want to know that they are capable of organising their daily routine, but senior people will have other organisational challenges. It is easy for people to say they are organised but you need evidence of this, so try and find examples of where they have to use their organisational abilities.

Is how you plan your day / department / team your own decision?

Find out if this is actually their skills being put to use or whether they are following someone else’s guidelines.

What factors do you have to take into consideration?

Sometimes organising is a simple task because there are few considerations. If there are many items or other people to consider then it becomes more complex and a greater test of organisational skills.

Give me an example of something else you have organised.

If you are interviewing someone who has worked in a role where the main focus is organisational, such as events management or conference organiser, or you are recruiting for this type of role, you will want to ask for several examples and go into this in more depth. Otherwise use this question to build on the information you have, and help establish what level of skill they have.

Did you organise this from start to finish or just part of it?

Make sure that when you are told that they organised something it was the complete task and not just an insignificant part of it.

What difficulties did you encounter?

This will help identify the depth of their involvement and their ability to problem solve.

How did you overcome them?

To be a good organiser you often need to be able to problem solve. There is no right or wrong answer here but you are looking for the fact that they recognised problems and overcame them.

Questions to assess communication skills

Communication is key in so many roles and you will have considered what type of skills you need and who the communication is with. These questions will help you understand what communication channels the candidate is familiar with and which they excel in.

Who do you have to communicate with on a daily / weekly / monthly basis?

How do you communicate upwards, that is to your manager, for example? How do you communicate downwards to the people that report to you directly? And to other teams?

The way you communicate can depend on who you are communicating with, and often different approaches are better for different people and situations.

Which method of communication do you prefer?

You are looking for a reply that mirrors the needs of your business. People usually excel in areas that they enjoy.

How would you improve the communication in your company?

Strong communicators will be frustrated by systems that they perceive do not get the point across. Here you want valid ideas, not complaints.

Have you ever initiated any improvements, and what were they?

Someone who can understand the problems and offer workable solutions will be a valued member of staff. Others may just want to interfere and change things for the sake of it. Try differentiating by asking the next two questions.

Did your improvements work?

They may have suggested changes, but were they well thought out and did they improve the system?

What was the feedback from other staff?

People do not like change but if they see it as an improvement they will come round.

Questions on management style

The next set of questions is for team leaders upwards and will help you appraise their management style and skills as well as their decision-making ability and judgement. The questions will aid you in your evaluation of their skills against the ones that you need.

How would you describe your management style?

You can expect a routine answer to this such as ‘firm but fair’, but it is the lead-in to further questions.

Can you demonstrate that with an example?

Make them back up this answer, and ask them for more examples until you can appraise what their style is.

How would your boss describe your management style?

Why would he / she describe it that way?

Can you give me an example of why they would think that?

What do you think about that?

How would your team describe your management style? Can you give me an example of why they would think that?

Has your style ever been criticised / praised? If so, by whom? Was this fair? How did you respond?

Using the questions above will draw out more information on how they manage. Are they aware of what others think, have they adapted their style, taken on constructive criticism, or carried on regardless? Is this the type of style that works well in your company?

Management techniques are also used to manage upwards. How do you manage your manager and his / her expectations? Can you give me an example?

A good manager not only manages their team but often has to manage upwards and convince their manager of something that will be right for their team, or manage expectations which are not going to be in line with predictions.

How is your team structured? Did you structure it?

You may be looking for someone who has put a team together or re-structured an existing one.

Have you ever re-structured a team? Why? Did it work?

They will need to be able to put together an efficient team structured in a logical way so that the team members are clear on what their team role is. They should be able to show that there was a good reason to re-structure and not just a whim.

What problems have you had in the team? How did you resolve them?

Managing often involves dealing with internal conflict and disagreements. It’s part of human nature and a good manager needs to be able to handle these situations. You may want to ask for more examples here to cover different types of problem, and you can give a scenario and ask how they would deal with it.

You want to hear a solution that demonstrates that they can analyse the problem and resolve it. Remember they don’t know how your company operates so their solution may not work in your company. They should also pick up on the fact that the finance clerk is doing a good job, so moving them to a different department or dismissing them because they can’t complete this one part of their job are not useful suggestions. Hopefully they will identify this as a training need and propose some form of training or mentoring to help.

Questions on decision-making ability

Good decisions are based on an understanding of the situation with all the facts to hand, and an ability to work out the best solution and then be able to act on it. We all learn from our mistakes so decision makers will improve if they review their decisions and consider how they could have responded differently.

What decisions do you have to make on a regular basis?

Many people have to take decisions but you need to know at what level they are taking them. Do their regular decisions include what time everyone goes to lunch, or is it their decision to decide whether to launch a new product at a cost of millions of pounds?

What other decisions do you get involved in?

Which is the most far-reaching decision you have taken?

What was the outcome of this?

Can you talk me through the thought process you went through to make that decision?

This will give you the parameters of their influence and level of their decision making.

Does anyone else get involved in any of your decisions? Can you describe a scene where this decision would be taken?

Very few companies can accommodate autocrats so it is important to understand how prospective employees reach their decision. Again there is no right or wrong answer, but is this someone who simply reacts on their first instinct without any consultation with others or stopping to consider the situation further? Such a person may not be what you are looking for.

Do you get advice on any decisions? In what form, and from whom?

If others are involved, who actually has the final decision?

What was the most difficult decision you have had to make, and why?

This may not necessarily have had a big impact on the company, but you are looking for someone who will take and see through difficult decisions.

Were you happy with that decision, or in hindsight could you have chosen a different one?

If it was their most difficult decision you will expect them to have a view of it, and with more experience they might have handled it differently.

What has been the most successful decision you have made?

This could have been a more personal decision like changing jobs or setting up their own business. Look at the thoughts behind this – were they logical, practical, and sensible?

Could it have been more successful? In what way?

Did they miss a crucial fact that could have had implications for their decision?

What was the worst decision you have made, and what impact did it have? What decision should you have taken? How did you rectify the situation?

No one is infallible, but did they get themselves out of the problem they had created and have they learned from their mistake?

Questions on financial skills

You need to find out the scope of their financial decision-making. Is it confined to their department or is it wider? Financially do they look after the stationery budget or are they involved in company financial strategy?

Does your role include financial decisions? At what level?

Do you set any budgets? What are they?

Most managers will work to budgets but these may have been set by others and they have had little or no input into them. Establish here how much involvement they have had.

What is the process?

Who else is involved?

If they put together or are involved in the budget process, discover how this works and decide if this experience will give them the skills to match your budgeting skills.

How would you change the process if you could?

Budgets are always a knotty subject and it is difficult to find a process that everyone considers fair. The answer needs to show logic and understanding of why the system is in place.

Have you worked through your own budgets, and how many times?

They may have set budgets but not had long enough to see them through the year or longer, so there is no way of assessing their success.

How successful were they? Did your department / company come in on budget?

Budgets are a financial planning tool so a successful one is an accurate one. Some candidates may see setting a budget and then coming in well below it as a success, but if it had been accurate then additional money could have been used elsewhere.

Questions on sales skills and ability

Given the outgoing nature of salespeople they can be the most difficult to assess, and asking for examples and further explanations here is vital.

How is your sales performance measured?

To understand how well they are doing you will need to know their key performance indicators. As discussed in Chapter 1, Identifying the Needs of the Business, they may be measured purely on their sales but this can include turnover, profitability, opening of new accounts, etc., etc. If their measurement of success is different from yours, ask them specifically how many new accounts they have opened this season / year.

How well are you doing against your current / previous target?

Now you need to discover if they are hitting target, and if not, ask why.

What has been your biggest percentage increase, and how did you achieve that?

This maybe due to their diligence but there are likely to be other factors, so probe into it.

Were there any other factors?

This increase could have coincided with a major advertising campaign, or one of their retail customers opened ten new shops that season, and so on. Identify how much of this was down to their own skill and hard work and how much was due to other influences.

Was anyone else involved?

Their manager may have been doing a lot of the visits with them so that they could take over a new type of account, in which case who did do the sales?

Who sets the strategy for targeting new accounts?

Understanding the market may be a big part of your sales team job. Does this candidate know it, or is someone else passing on the leads and they follow them up?

How do you set the strategy?

You may want someone who simply bangs on doors, or you may need a more sophisticated strategic approach.

What criteria do you use?

You may not be worried about brand identity so the criteria on who you sell to may be very open, but what about credit ratings, etc? If you are more brand-aware then you want to ensure this candidate understands what will be important in assessing new accounts.

Where do you get the information from for the criteria?

How resourceful are they or how dependent on having information fed to them?

What strategy do you use to maintain and increase sales to existing accounts?

If there is pressure to open new accounts, sometimes existing ones can get ignored. How do they ensure this doesn’t happen and how do they increase sales with these customers?

What do you do at a sales presentation?

The answer to this will vary enormously depending on the market and the type of product. What sort of presentations will they need to do in your organisation, have they done these or are they capable of doing them? You may have decided to include a sales presentation in your selection process to check this out – see Chapter 4, Your Recruitment and Selection Process.

How often do you speak to /see your customers?

This again will vary but find out if they have the same approach that you are looking for.

What would your customers say about you?

A trade reference can prove very interesting. Do they buy from this person because they just have to stock the product, or do they buy their product, which is similar to many others, because they get better follow-up service from them?

You may be looking for someone to handle particular accounts so ask some specific questions about their account base.

Who do you sell into currently?

Who is your main customer?

We are looking for someone to handle our . . . account. Have you handled anything similar?

If they are responsible for a sales team you can use the following questions to understand what level of responsibility they have and how they manage targets, under-performers, etc.

How do you set their targets?

Is anyone else involved in this?

Are the team involved?

How do you keep them motivated?

How often do you speak to / see their customers?

How often do you go to customers with them?

If one of your team is under-performing what do you do?

Can you give me an example?

What percentage of your time is spent in the office?

What do you look for when you are recruiting?

What mistakes have you made in recruiting? How did you overcome this? How have you changed your recruitment process to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

What successes have you had hiring people?

Questions on technical ability

For junior technical roles you may need to ask straightforward questions about what system they have used and at what level of competence. If you have specified that they must have used a particular system, then your questions will focus specifically around this. In any technical role you do need to be able to appraise exactly what the candidate can do, and therefore a practical task is most appropriate but the following questions will help.

What systems do you use / have you used?

What training have you had in these?

Are you familiar with x that we use here?

Can you give me an example where you have used it?

Have you developed any systems, and what were they for?

Did they work?

Have any of them been used elsewhere in the company?

If the candidate has used a system that you are familiar with, you can give them a scenario and ask how they would deal with it.

Questions on their ability to influence others

It is no longer only management jobs where you need to influence people. You may need to be able to influence your team, other departments, other managers, customers, and the list can go on and on. It may even be to persuade the cleaner to empty the rubbish bins even if they have smelly food in them!

Who do you have to influence?

This could also apply outside of work.

Can you give me an example of how you have influenced a decision within your company?

Who did you have to influence in this instance?

How did you achieve this?

Did it work?

Are there any departments / other managers that you have to influence in order to get your job done?

How do you deal with this?

Can you give me an example to illustrate this?

Questions on leadership skills

Some of the questions looking at leadership are covered under management, but you may be recruiting someone who can lead but who won’t be a manager.

Are you, or have you ever been, a leader either at work or outside?

What kind of leader are you?

How would your boss / your team describe your leadership?

Is there any way you want to improve your leadership skills?

Can you give me an example of where you have had to persuade your team to do something that they didn’t agree with? Or that you felt was the wrong way to proceed?

Questions on team work

Working well in a team or successfully managing the team may be an important skill so you need to find out how this candidate copes in that situation. The questions below can be used for team members or team leaders.

Do you prefer working on your own or in a team? Why?

If someone doesn’t like being in a team this is usually obvious to the other members and can be unproductive.

What do you like most about being in this / these teams?

What do you like most about leading this / these teams?

What do you dislike most?

There may be a particular reason this person does or doesn’t like working in a team and it’s worth finding out what that is before you discount them as a ‘non team player’.

What other teams are you, or have you been, involved in – for example interdepartmental ones?

This will show if they work in isolation or are involved in other areas of the business.

How did you get involved in this?

If they were nominated by their manager this could indicate that they have some leadership skills, or if they volunteered then they clearly like being in teams and like to be involved in other parts of the business. In the case of a team leader, they may have been promoted into it.

What have you found most difficult to deal with in the team?

Use this as a question to lead into the one below. How they dealt with it is more important than what the problem was.

How did you deal with this?

Could it have been dealt with differently? Better?

These questions will indicate whether or not they are comfortable in a team environment and how they deal with conflict or issues within the team. Did they put forward a reasoned argument and get the team back on track, or go and complain to someone?

Questions on planning skills

There is a certain amount of planning in all jobs. It may be an important factor in your role so you need to establish what the candidate has planned themselves and not as part of a group, or whether they have planned the whole project and not just part of it.

Are you responsible for any type of planning within your company? What is this?

How have you set about putting a planning schedule together?

What factors did you consider?

Was anyone else involved?

Did the plan work / is the plan working?

What difficulties were there getting it operational?

• Use the skills identified on the candidate specification to plan your questions.
• Keep delving – make sure you are certain you have the full answer.
• Ask for examples to demonstrate these skills.
• Set scenarios and ask for a reaction.
• Ensure you have enough information to assess the ‘essential skills’.