Interview Tips, Sample Interview Questions and Discussion Points
Things to remember and avoid when interviewing a candidate:
 Should there be more than one person interviewing the candidate; be sure to
introduce each member of the team and what their function is at the
University.
Perhaps explain how long they have been with UND and the
department.
 Ask open ended questions. They would be the questions that will allow you to
observe their thought process and gain the most information from the
candidate.
 When asking the candidate what might be a challenging question, let them
know that it is okay to take their time in answering.
 Do not ask any questions of a personal nature about the candidate.
 All questions should be directed towards their professional history,
experience, and education required of this position.
 Do not ask that general question, “So, tell me about yourself”. This opens up
the possibility of the candidate telling you about their personal life,
marriage, children, etc. that are not relevant to this discussion.
Qualify
that question in this manner, “Tell me about your professional/work history”.
 Remember, if you ask a question of one candidate, you must ask that
question of all candidates. The only questions that should be different from
each candidate would be those relating to follow up questions regarding their
specific employment history details, education, etc.
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Remember that the candidate could ask YOU questions too.
What Could the Candidate Ask You?
1. Why is this position vacant?
2. What are the benefits associated with this position?
3. What is your management/supervisory style?
4. What type of employee (strengths, skills, etc) are you looking for to fill this
position?
5. What is the department like? How many employees?
6. How well do the members of this team work together?
7. What is the most challenging part of this position?
8. Why would I like working in this department?
9. Why would I like working for the University of North Dakota?
10. What is the salary for this position?
Sample Interview Questions
General Questions
1. Tell me what you know about the University.
2. Tell me why you chose (name career) as your profession.
3. What do you like most about this profession?
4. Why have you applied for this position?
5. What skill sets do you think you would bring to this position?
6. What are some positive aspects of your last or current employer?
7. After learning about this opportunity, what made you take the next step and apply
for the job?
8. Tell me about your normal experiences during a typical day in your current position.
9. What qualities and skills do you think a successful (name the career/profession)
professional should have? Which of these qualities and skills you named, do you
have?
10. What things are most important to you in a position?
11. What things are most important to you in a potential employer/company/
organization?
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12. Tell me anything else you would like us to know about you that will assist us in
making our decision.
13. What questions would you like to ask me?
14. Why should we hire YOU?
Customer Service/Client Focus
1
What do you like about being in customer service? What do you find is the most
difficult part of being in customer service?
2
We all have customers or clients. Who are your clients and how do you identify
them?
3
How would you define customer satisfaction?
4
What does “customer” mean to you?
5
What process do you go through when a customer is dissatisfied?
6
“Yes” is the word customers/clients like to hear. However, if you had to say
“no”, how would you do it?
7
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer/client issue.
What was the outcome? What did you learn?
Initiative
1
Can you share with us a time during your previous employment when you
suggested a better way to perform a process or task? What process did you
use to provide an alternative process or task?
2
What was the most creative thing you did in your last job?
3
Tell me about a career goal you have accomplished and why that was important
to you.
Interpersonal Skills
1
Share with me an example of a time when you had to deal with a difficult coworker. How did you handle the situation?
2
Describe a time when you were instrumental in creating a positive relationship
with another department within your company.
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3
Describe how you liked to be managed.
4
What would your last boss say about how you collaborate with others?
5
What is the best way to give you constructive feedback?
Teamwork Skills
1
What do you think are the best and most challenging parts of working in a team
environment? How do you handle it?
2
What do you think makes a team of people work well together? What makes
them not work well together?
3
Do you have experience working in teams? Please explain.
4
When working in a team environment, conflicts can arise. How do you deal with
those?
Time Management
1. Have you worked under time constraints before? Can you give us an example?
2. Was there a time when you struggled to meet a deadline? Tell us about it.
3. When you have a lot of work or multiple priorities, how do you get it all done? Give
me an example.
4. Tell me about your time management skills.
Leadership
1. Give me an example of a time when you needed to help other employees learn a new
skills set. What did you do?
2. Have you been in a position where you had to lead a group of peers? How did you
handle it? Tell me about any challenges you had and how you managed them.
3. A new policy is to be implemented organization-wide (or department wide). You do
not agree with this new policy. How do you discuss this policy with your staff?
4. Tell us about your management/leadership style.
5. Do you find it more natural to point out what’s wrong so employees can accomplish
tasks competently or to praise employees for their work and then point out what
may need correcting?
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6. Tell me about your experiences with staff development.
7. What do you do to develop employees you manage?
8. What is your own philosophy of management?
9. Describe an ideal supervisor/manager.
10. Have you ever managed a situation where the people or units reporting to you were
in different locations? Tell me how this worked.
Diversity and Inclusion
1. Describe a time when you included someone in your team or project because you
felt he or she would bring a different perspective.
2. Tell me about a time you had to alter your work style to meet a diversity need or
challenge.
3. What kinds of experiences have you had working with others with backgrounds
different from your own.
4. What does it mean to have a commitment to diversity, and how would you develop
and apply your commitment at this university?
5. What efforts have you made or been involved with to foster diversity competence
and understanding?
Project Management
1. What type of projects have you managed in the past?
2. What was the last big project you worked on?
3. Supervisor-describe a specific project for this position-Ask them how they would
start; who should be on the project team and why; what are the risks for this
project; what controls would you put into place to overcome these risks?
Financial Management
1. Describe your budget creation and management experience.
2. Have you completed month end/year end closing? How much experience do you have
with that?
3. Describe your Profit and Loss experience.
4. Have you ever done a cost-benefit analysis? Tell about it.
5. What experience do you have with financial planning?
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6. Have you ever been over budget? Why? How did you handle this?
7. Tell me about your financial management experience: budgeting, reporting, cutting
costs, building and maintaining reserves.
8. What experience have you had with tax accounting?
Ethical Conduct/Work Ethic
1. Define professional behavior and/or conduct appropriate in the workplace.
2. Explain the phrase “work ethic” and describe yours.
3. Have you ever faced a significant ethical challenge at work? How did you handle it?
Decision Making
1. Tell me about a time when you had to make a work-related decision and the
steps you took to reach your decision.
2. Describe a time when you had to make a very important and difficult decision
that affected everyone in your department.
3. What methods do you use to make decisions?
When do you find it most
difficult to make a decision?
4. You have a critical decision to make for your department, and all alternatives
will likely be unpopular with your staff.
What input do you gather before
deciding? What factors do you take into consideration?
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