Smart interview questions to help you hire the right candidate
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Posted: Fri 9th May 2025
6 min read
A large part of conducting a job interview is assessing the candidate's skills and experience.
But in that brief time you have with them, you must also learn about their thought process, ability to work with other people and potential fit within your team. For that reason, asking the right questions is crucial.
The best interview questions go beyond the basics. They provide insight into how a person deals with pressure, solves problems and communicates – while also laying bare what motivates them professionally.
By blending role-specific questions with more general, open-ended ones, you can help candidates demonstrate both their capabilities and character.
Here are eight effective questions you could add to your interviewing list.
1. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?
You can discover more about a candidate's values and areas of success by asking them about a high point in their career.
It's also a good way to find out if their definition of a great result matches your expectations for the position you're hiring for.
2. Share something about yourself that I won't find on your CV.
Most candidates will carefully curate their CVs to highlight relevant experience – which means they often don't give you the full story.
Asking this question lets candidates open up about something personal, whether that's volunteering work, a trip that changed their life or a side project they love doing.
How they respond will tell you a lot about their motivations and what they might bring to your company culture.
3. What makes you want to join our team?
A well-prepared candidate will have done plenty of research. This question allows you to determine how far they've gone – and whether they've carefully considered how might would fit in.
Listen for details that suggest they understand your values, your aims or your market.
4. Why did you apply for this specific role?
With this question, you can learn whether the candidate has properly read and understood the job description.
It also allows them to describe how their skills fit with what you need, and what they're hoping to gain or achieve if they're hired.
5. What do you consider your biggest weakness?
There's a reason this question is asked in many, many job interviews! Here, honesty, self-awareness and the ability to improve are more important than perfection.
As they describe their shortcoming, assess whether it could affect important aspects of the job, but also listen for how they're attempting to address it.
6. What would you say is your greatest strength?
This is the flipside of the last question. The best responses will not only tell you what the candidate does well, but also demonstrate how those strengths are relevant to the role they're interviewing for.
It's a chance for you to gauge how confidently the candidate talks about their abilities without coming off as arrogant.
7. Describe a challenging situation you've faced at work and how you dealt with it.
Everyone encounters some kind of difficulty in their job, but a person's response to stress and pressure can reveal a lot about them.
This question lets candidates discuss their ability to solve problems, emotional intelligence and resilience – particularly if they can clearly explain what the experience taught them.
8. Why do you want to leave your current job?
People change jobs for a variety of reasons, but how they talk about a previous employer will show how professional they are.
Even if they didn't have a particularly good experience, you're looking to hear a respectful, balanced response rather than a litany of complaints.
Final thoughts
Assessing qualifications is just one aspect of a job interview. It's also your opportunity to determine whether someone is a good personality fit and will be able to make a positive contribution to your business.
The questions above are designed to spark meaningful discussions that go beyond what you've read on the person's CV – so you can make more assured, more informed hiring decisions.
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