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GENERAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Education: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) What aspects of your training and education have most helped you on the job? What skills or knowledge do you have not evident from your school records? Work background/preferences: What about your last job prepared you for this job? What did you like most and least about your previous jobs? What would your previous supervisor say if we asked him or her about what you are like as an employee? What are your two greatest accomplishments on your previous jobs? What are your two greatest disappointments on your previous jobs? If you could design the ideal job for you, what would it be like? Tell me what you know about our company and its competitors.

Workplace interaction 11) 12) 13) 14) How do you resolve personal confrontations? What have you done when youve received instructions with which youve disagreed? What constructive criticism have you received, and what did you do about it? Tell me about your experiences working on a team.

Leadership potential 15) 16) What do you feel are the qualities required for good leadership? Tell me about a group you had to lead that was difficult and how you got the members to achieve a goal.

Behavior under stress 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) What do you do when you have too much work for a given period of time? Tell me about the toughest decision you ever had to make. Future Behaviors/Retention Possibilities Where would you like to be careerwise in 5 years? In 10 years? What are three things you will NOT do on your next job? Are you lucky?

If you consider number 20 a bit strange, it has real potential, according to Daniel Pink, author of the best seller, Free Agent Nation, and a speaker at SHRMs recent national conference. According to Pink, individuals who believe themselves lucky tend to be optimistic and work out well as collaborators, innovators, and providers of excellent customer service. 23) 24) 25) Tell me why you chose Human Resource Management as your profession. Do you have a personal philosophy about HR management? What do you like most about HR? What do you like least, and what do you find the most challenging?

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During your HR career, which positions have you reported to and which reporting structure do you prefer? How do you stay current with changes in employment laws, practices and other HR issues? An employee tells you about a sexual harassment allegation but then tells you they don't want to do anything about it; they just thought you should know. How do you respond? Describe the most difficult employee relations situation you have had to handle, how it was resolved or not, and why. What have you done to help your human resources department to become a strategic partner? As HR professionals, we often deal with legal and ethical situations. Tell me about an ethical situation you have encountered and what part you took in resolving it. Tell me about any illegal discrimination charges you have handled and how these were resolved. What experience do you have in multi-state HR management? Tell me about your policy development experiences. What employment policies have you developed or revised? What is your experience in compiling or revising an Employee Handbook? Describe your knowledge of/involvement with progressive discipline. Describe your knowledge of/involvement with Performance Evaluation processes. Tell me about programs that you have implemented. Tell me about your experience in training and developing your employees or managers. Tell me about training and development programs you have developed. Have you ever worked in a Union Environment? What were the positives/negatives? Tell me about a time when a manager wanted you to terminate an employee in contrast to your companys termination policy. How was it resolved?

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34) 35) 36) 37) 38) 39) 40)

Behavioural 41) 42) 43) 44) 45) 46) 47) 48) 49) 50) Describe what you would say if asked to talk about yourself in a group of 15 people. If someone told you that you had made an error, describe how you would react and what you would say in your defense. If someone asked you for assistance with a matter that is outside the parameters of your job description, what would you do? You are a committee member and disagree with a point or decision. How will you respond? Describe what you would classify as a crisis. You are angry about an unfair decision. How do you react? Suppose you are in a situation where deadlines and priorities change frequently and rapidly. How would you handle it? How do you know when you are stressed? What do you do to de-stress? Tell me about a time when you were a part of a great team. What was your part in making the team effective? Give me an example of a time when you had to deal with a difficult co-worker. How did you handle the situation?

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How do you think your co-workers would respond if you were absent from work? Can you tell me about a time during your previous employment when you suggested a better way to perform a process? Tell me about a personal or career goal that you have accomplished and why that was important to you. Give an example of a time when you were trying to meet a deadline, you were interrupted, and did not make the deadline. How did you respond? What strengths did you rely on in your last position to make you successful in your work? What do you do when you know you are right and your boss disagrees with you? Give me an example of when this has happened in your career. Tell me about a situation you wish that you had handled differently based on the outcome. What was the situation? What would you change (or will you change) when faced with a similar situation? Suppose your supervisor asked you to get information for them that you know is confidential and he/she should not have access to. What would you do? Describe a time when you performed a task outside your perceived responsibilities. What was the task? Why did you perceive it to be outside your responsibilities? What was the outcome? Its 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Your supervisor gives you an assignment that needs to be finished by 8:00 Monday morning. You have already made plans to be away the entire weekend. What would you do? If you observed a co-worker who made inappropriate sexual or racial remarks to another employee, and it was obvious to you that the situation was creating an uncomfortable environment, what would you do?

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Teams 62) 63) 64) 65) 66) 67) 68) 69) 70) 71) 72) When groups work together, conflict often erupts. Tell me about a time that conflict occurred in one of your work groups and what you did about it. Tell me what role you play within work groups and why. How would people you work with describe you? Tell me about the most effective contribution you have made as part of a task group or special project team. Tell me about a time you pitched in to help someone finish a project even though it wasnt your job. What was the result? Have you ever been in a position where you had to lead a group of peers? How did you handle it? Tell me about problems you had and how you handled them. What is essential for a team to be successful? Tell me about a time you worked in a cross functional team? Were there different challenges compared to a departmental task team? Have you ever worked in a virtual team? If so, tell me about this experience. What were the team dynamics? Was the team successful? What would you do differently? If not, what do you perceive to be the advantages and disadvantages of this type of team? How would you suggest creating team cohesiveness in a virtual setting?

73)

Tell me about a situation where political power plays affected team dynamics. How did you or could the team have overcome or avoided this situation?

Interpersonal 74) 75) 76) 77) 78) 79) 80) What are your strengths? What would your last boss say about you? Describe how you like to be managed, and the best relationship youve had with a previous boss. If I asked your previous/current co-workers about you what would they say? Describe what you see as your strengths related to this job/position. Describe what you see as your weaknesses related to this job/position. Explain the phrase work ethic and describe yours. What kind of people do you find it most difficult to work with? For example, assume you are in a situation where you have to deal with a person very different from yourself and you are finding it difficult. What would you do? What methods do you use to make decisions? When do you find it most difficult to make a decision? Describe a difficult time you have had dealing with an employee, customer, or coworker. Why was it difficult? How did you handle it? What was the outcome? How would your co-workers describe your work style/habits? What do you do when others resist or reject your ideas or actions? What do you think are the best and worst parts of working in a team environment? How do you handle it? Under what kinds of conditions do you learn best? How would your past employers describe your response to hectic or stressful situations? How would your co-workers describe your work style or work habits? If I asked several of your co-workers about your greatest strength as a team member, what would they tell me? To you, which is more desirable: A business that is run in an efficient business-like manner OR a business that is run in a personal and friendly way?

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Management 91) 92) 93) 94) 95) 96) 97) 98) Define professional behavior and/or conduct appropriate in the workplace. Why do you think a team of people sports team, work team, may not work well together? Tell us about your management style - people, teamwork, direction? Describe an ideal supervisor. What is your own philosophy of management? How have you participated in planning processes? Is it more important to be a detail oriented person, or a big picture person? Explain. What was the most challenging personnel issue youve had to deal with and how did you handle it?

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Describe for me a time when you have come across questionable business practices; how did you handle the situation?

100) A new policy is to be implemented organization-wide. You do not agree with this new policy. How do you discuss this policy with your staff? 101) Describe for me a decision you made which would normally have been made by your supervisor? What was the outcome? 102) Discuss and differentiate between remediation, corrective action, and discipline. 103) Explain, step by step, how you have handled an employee who had performance problems. 104) Why should employees seek to improve their knowledge and skill base? 105) How would you motivate them to do so? 106) What coaching or mentoring experience have you had? With groups or one-on-one? How did you determine the appropriate way to coach/mentor and what were the results? 107) Management requires both good writing and verbal skills for good communication. When it comes to giving information to employees that can be done either way, do you prefer to write a memo OR talk to the employee? 108) When making a decision to fire an employee, do you find it easy because of the companys needs OR difficult because of the employees needs? 109) Managing requires motivating employees as well as accomplishing tasks. Do you find it more natural to point out whats wrong so employees can accomplish tasks competently OR to praise employees for their work and then point out what may need correcting? 110) Managers need good information and managers need to make good decisions. Do you tend to gather information up to a deadline in order to make a better-informed decision OR gather just enough information to make a good decision quickly? 111) What is the largest number of employees you have supervised and what were their job functions? 112) Are you best at dealing with details and day-to-day operations OR with concepts, envisioning and future planning? Give me an example. Customer Service 113) How do you handle angry customers? 114) How do you respond to rude or abusive customers? 115) How would you respond to customer threatening violence? 116) How do you respond with bad feedbacks from dissatisfied customers? 117) Describe an occasion where you performed an action outside your remit, for the benefit of the team 118) How would you respond if a customer makes a request that violates your employer's policy? 119) Describe a situation when you took an initiative to provide a customer with best solutions 120) Describe how you relate with customers 121) What is your definition of going the extra mile for a customer 122) Describe an occasion where you adopted a different approach to a customer, having realised your first approach was ineffectual 123) Describe an occasion where a customer tested your patience

124) What do you find most fulfilling when dealing with the public 125) Describe how you resolved a challenging and complex situation to the customer's satisfaction 126) Describe an instance you had to ask numerous questions and listened attentively in order to resolve a customer issue 127) What does good customer service mean to you? 128) How would you differentiate between effective customer service and efficient customer service? What in your opinion, is more important of the two? 129) How familiar are you with the concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? 130) How would you deal with an extremely irate customer? 131) How would you serve or assist a customer whose language or accent is difficult to understand? 132) Why do you think you are suitable for a customer service position? 133) What are your weaknesses with respect to customer service? What do you intend to do about it? 134) Have you any prior work experience in customer service? 135) If you realize that the customer is wrong, or being unreasonable, how would you convey this to him or her? How would you deal with the situation? 136) Under what circumstances would you escalate the customer's query or problem to your supervisor or boss? 137) Given a chance to make or recommend a change in the company's operational practices (with respect to improving customer satisfaction), what would you suggest? 138) If you find out that a currency note that the customer has handed over to you is a fake, and the customer refuses to accept it, how would you deal with the situation? 139) If a customer shows up with a complicated problem five minutes before you are to leave for the day, what would you do? 140) If you are faced with a technical product query or difficulty that you aren't well-versed or confident about, what would you do? 141) If faced with abusive language from a customer, how would you deal with the situation? 142) If a customer provides you with severely negative feedback or stinging criticism about your service or product, how would you take it? 143) Do you believe in the statement 'Customer is the king'? What does it mean to you? 144) What do you believe, are the keys to good customer service? General 145) Could you share with us a recent accomplishment of which you are most proud? 146) What would you have liked to do more of in your last position? What held you back? 147) Tell us a bit about your work background, and then give us a description of how you think it relates to our current opening. 148) What are your qualifications in your area of expertise, i.e., what skills do you have that make you the best candidate for this position? Include any special training you have had (on-the-job, college, continuing education, seminars, reading, etc.) and related work experience. 149) Why have you applied for this position?

150) What skill set do you think you would bring to this position? 151) Tell me about your present or last job. Why did you choose it? Why did you/do you want to leave? 152) What was your primary contribution/achievement? Biggest challenge? 153) What are your short-term and long-term goals? 154) In what areas would you like to develop further? What are your plans to do that? 155) What are some positive aspects of your last employment/employer? What are some negative aspects? 156) What do you think about SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)? 157) What are your career path interests? 158) What do you know about our company? 159) Why should we hire YOU? 160) If the position required it, would you be willing to travel? 161) If the position required it, would you be willing to relocate? 162) If you were offered this position, when would you be available to start? 163) After learning about this opportunity, what made you take the next step and apply for the job? 164) If you are the successful applicant, how would you expect to be different after a year in this position? 165) Now that you have learned about our company and the position you are applying for, what hesitation or reluctance would you have in accepting this job if we offer it to you? 166) Tell me anything else you would like us to know about you that will aid us in making our decision. 167) Tell me about a sale you have made that you feel particularly proud of 168) Give me an example of a time you have sold additional products to a customer. How did you identify the opportunity to do this? 169) Give me an example of when you have coached or trained a colleague to help them improve their selling skills. 170) Tell me about how you plan your sales activity in your current job. 171) Give me an example of a time when you have exceeded a customers expectations. 172) Give me an example of a complaint from a customer you have resolved recently 173) How have you rewarded outstanding customer service in your team? Give me an example of this 174) What have you done to improve the standard of customer service provided by your team? 175) Tell me how you go about welcoming customers and putting them at ease. 176) How would you describe your communication style? When have you changed your style to meet the needs of the audience? 177) Give me an example of when you have coached or trained a colleague to help them build rapport with customers. 178) What is the most complex message you have had to deliver to your team? How did you set about this task?

179) What do you enjoy most about working with other people? Give me an example to illustrate this 180) Tell me about when things werent going well in the team. What did you do? 181) Tell me about a decision you have made that had an impact on the team. What factors did you consider? 182) Give me an example of how you have developed team working within your team 183) Tell me how you have planned resources within your team. What factors did you take into consideration? 184) What do you enjoy most about your current job? Why is this? 185) What do you do if you are faced with difficulties in the course of your work? Give me an example of how you have overcome these 186) Tell me about a time you had to put a lot of personal energy and time into improving results at work. How did you feel about this? 187) How do you know when youve done a really good job? Give me some examples to illustrate this 188) Give me an example of when you have failed to deliver on a commitment at work. How did you feel? What did you learn? 189) Tell me about a time when you had to deal with unsatisfactory performance in the team 190) Tell me how you monitor your teams progress against targets. What have you done when targets are not being met? 191) How do you ensure your product knowledge is up to date? Give an example to illustrate this 192) Describe a situation when a customer asked for comparative information on competitor products. How did you handle this? 193) Give me an example of a time when you have coached or trained a colleague to build their knowledge of our products and services 194) Give me an example of how you have used your **expertise in your day to day role 195) How do you ensure your colleagues comply with **policies and procedures? Give me an example to illustrate this 196) Give me an example of a **operational policy that you have developed. How did you go about implementing it? 197) How do you normally react to the unexpected? Give me an example to illustrate this 198) Give me an example of a time when you saw the need to make a change at work. What did you learn from the experience? 199) As a manager, what are the critical things you need to do internally to ensure change is successful? 200) What have you done to make sure that the effectiveness of the team isnt affected by changes to the working environment? 201) What do you sell in your current role? 202) Tell me about a sale you have made that you feel particularly proud of 203) How do you decide what sales advice to give to a customer? 204) Who are your customers in your current role? 205) Give me an example of a time when youve really exceeded a customers expectations

206) What do you enjoy about working with customers? 207) Tell me how you go about welcoming customers and putting them at their ease 208) Give me a recent example of how you handled an unhappy customer 209) Tell me about a time when you had to find out about a customers requirements. How did you go about this? 210) Tell me about a time when you feel you worked really effectively as part of a team? 211) Tell me about a time when you have taken on extra work to help a colleague out 212) What do you like best about working with other people? Give me an example to illustrate this 213) Tell me about a recent problem that you identified at work. How did you go about solving it? 214) Give me an example of something you have done to make your job easier 215) Give me an example of one change you could make in your current role to help you work more effectively 216) What goals do you have? What are your plans for the future? 217) What do you enjoy most about your current job? Why is this? 218) How do you stay cheerful and enthusiastic when you are feeling tired or unhappy? Give me an example to illustrate this 219) Give me some examples of how you decide what your priorities are on a day-to-day basis 220) How do know when youve done a really good job? Give some examples to demonstrate this 221) Tell me about a mistake you made at work recently. What did you learn? 222) Give me an example of a time when you had to tell a customer about a product or a retail promotion in your area 223) Describe a situation when you had to ask a colleague for help with a sales query. What did you do? 224) How do you ensure your product knowledge is up-to-date? Give an example to illustrate this 225) Give me an example of when you have coached or trained a colleague to help them improve their selling skills 226) Tell me about how you get customers to reach a decision. Can you give me an example? 227) Give me an example of a time you have sold additional products to a customer. How did you identify the opportunity to do this? 228) Tell me about a time when you have supported your colleagues to deliver excellent service to a customer 229) Give me an example of a complaint from a customer you have resolved recently 230) What kind of customers do you find it most difficult to deal with? Why is this?

231) Give me an example of when you have coached or trained a colleague to help them to build rapport with customers 232) Tell me about a serious complaint you have managed recently from a customer. What did you do to build a positive relationship with the customer?

233) What is the most complex message you have had to deliver (to your manager or team)? How did you set about the task? Why did you choose to do it that way? 234) Tell me about a time when things werent going well in the team. What did you do? 235) Give me an example of when you have provided informal coaching or advice to others to help them do their job more effectively? How did you go about this? 236) Tell me about a decision you have made that had an impact on the team. What factors did you consider? How did you get the team's support? 237) Tell me about a time when a colleague has come to you with an idea. What was your response? 238) How important do you think it is to consider alternate ways of doing things at work? Give me an example of when you have done that? What was the result? 239) How do you decide if an idea from a colleague will work or not? Give me an example to illustrate this 240) What is it that has driven you to be successful at work? Give me an example to illustrate this? 241) Tell me about a time when you had to put in a lot of personal time and energy into improving results within your team. How did you feel about this? 242) Give me an example of someone you have used as a role model in your career. Why was that? 243) Tell me about a time when you had a colleague who wasnt performing. How did you approach this problem? 244) How do you measure your own performance? Give me an example to illustrate this 245) Tell me about a time when you used your knowledge of the current retail promotions in (your area) to win a sale 246) Tell me about a time when a customer asked you a question that you couldnt answer. What did you do? 247) Give me an example of how you have adapted to a significant change at work? What did you do differently? 248) What do you do to help your colleagues during times of changing priorities at work? Give an example to illustrate this 249) Tell me about a time when you have had to modify your approach to achieve an objective? 250) Tell me what were the first 3 objectives you set yourself when you started your last new job. How did you decide what was your priority?

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