Do your interview questions need a refresh? Situational interview questions ask about a time that a candidate demonstrated a skill in the past. These are valuable, but since we know that often people exaggerate their work during an interview, these can only be verified in a thorough reference check. Instead, situational interview questions assess a candidate’s capability and readiness to complete tasks in the future. To ensure that you are hiring the right fit for your team, add in some scenario based leadership interview questions. Read on and you will find out how to write them for your specific team, and examples that you can use as is, or modify for your hiring needs.
What’s the difference between experience vs. scenario based leadership questions
Experienced based interview questions rely on how someone has said that they have performed in the past. If there is a super prepared candidate, they will have rehearsed examples of when they demonstrated teamwork, thought outside of the box, or demonstrated leadership.
Scenario based interview question ask you how to respond to a hypothetical situation. The benefit of this is that the interviewer gets to ask situations that are very specific to the company. And you get to see how they really think and would react to future workplace challenges.
Why does this matter?
You get to hire the best candidates based on what they will do in the future, not what they said that they did in the past.
In my experience, candidates can have a grandiose view of their previous work when they are trying to sell themselves during an interview. According to this study, 100% of candidates would stretch the truth during a job interview!
Have you ever contacted a reference and asked them to verify all of the claims that were made in the interview by the candidate? Neither have I – where is the time for that?
Instead, by using some scenario based questions within the interview, you will get to challenge them, see how bright and resourceful they are, how much they rely on their team mates, etc. Most importantly, you will get to see how their strengths and weaknesses may fit in with your current team.
Remember, you want a balanced team. Hiring all new graduates is not the best way to achieve this. See the value of have a multi-generation team learn from each other.
As a leader, you are aware of your team dynamics and the strengths and weaknesses of each member. It is really important that you bring someone on to your team that will fill a gap that you may have. Use the knowledge of that gap to ask targeted scenario based interview questions to the candidate.
As easy as it might be to use the same interview questions over and over again for each position- you are doing yourself a disservice. It is important to recruit based on your current need, and generic questions will not get you the best candidate. An important note: you must ask the same interview questions to all of the candidates interviewing for a single position. You can only change them when you are interviewing for the NEXT position.
How to write scenario based leadership interview questions for your company
Get inspiration for scenario based questions that align with whats important on your team by thinking of:
- Previous incident reports or staff errors
- Scenarios that have occurred on previous projects
- Interpersonal conflict that has occurred
- Customer complaints
- A request for resources from the client/leadership/another department
- Ability to demonstrate work ethic
Ensure that you have some versatility in the scenarios that has the potential to cover multiple types of soft skills such as communication, problem solving, teamwork, etc.
The questions should not be too vague, but open ended enough that there is room for the candidate to maneuver with their answer. Get some inspiration from the questions below.
Examples of scenario based leadership interview questions
Here is a list of questions that you can use as is, or modify to align with your industry or specific team need.
- Imagine that you are a new employee here and are being trained on an existing process. You are following along learning the steps, but then the experienced employee encourages you to deviate from the steps to their “faster way” instead of the company policy. What would you say to the trainer? Would you follow their method for completing work?
- You are leading a project, and one of your team members seems distracted and not themselves. The quality of their work is not up to par. Since they are typically a good team member, would you say anything? Who would you speak to?
- A customer that you have a good relationship with privately tells you that one of your team members was unprofessional towards them the other day. They ask you not to say anything because they “do not want them to get in to trouble”. Would you do or say anything?
- Your manager assigns you to a project where you are not familiar with the subject matter. What action would you take to get up to speed? What could your resources be?
- While working on multiple projects for different clients, one of them is very particular about the work that they require, and demands that you focus all of your attention on their needs. Since you are balancing multiple clients, what would you say to them?
- You are working towards a deadline on an important project, when your boss asks you to work on an equally important task. How do you prioritize your work? Follow-up question: How would you approach this if you did not feel you could complete all of the work on time?
- You are working towards a deadline on an important project, when a team member asks you to help them because they are stuck on their project. How would you approach this?
- When distracted by multiple tasks, you accidentally send an email attachment containing privileged information to the wrong client. What would you do?
- You are rushing to complete a deadline, and you are not satisfied with the final quality of your work. What would you say to your boss?
- You see that your colleague has made an error in their work – during a power point presentation. What would you do or say?
What you should be looking for in their answers
It’s great to know what to ask candidates to assess if they would be a good fit for your team – but what are the right answers?
Acceptable answers should highlight some of the soft skills necessary for the job, such as:
- Teamwork
- Initiative
- Time Management
- Resource Management
- Adaptability AND attitude towards change. (I know a few people who will change course when required, but will grumble quite a bit about it)
- Conflict (self or team)
- Decision making/rationale
- Critical thinking
- Willingness to learn
Read more detail about acceptable answers here to find amazing employees. Remember, if you interview 5 people and you do not find the super star employee you are looking for – do not settle. Trust me, more work on the front end will save you way more time down the road managing a problem employee!
Acceptable answers should not be a generic lip service of business buzzwords. Having the right words and demonstrating that you can do the right things with scenario based interview questions give you confidence as a hiring manager that you are finding the best fit for your team.