Example Interview Questions

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Example Interview Questions

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Future Leaders Fellows Development Network

Recruitment Toolkit - Example interview questions

This is not an exhaustive bank of questions, but it will hopefully inspire

you to create your own lists. You will need to tailor many of these to your
own post or needs.

Motivation
 What attracts you most to the post/institution/project?
 If you were working with us, in a year’s time, what would hold your
motivation and keep you in the role?
 Tell us about a task that was tedious or boring to you - but had to be
done.

Values fit
 Tell us something about you that you feel demonstrates who you
are and why this leads you to think you would fit well in our team.
 Can you describe a time when you have had a disagreement or
difficult conversation with someone? How did you approach
resolving this?

Leadership and management

 Thinking about your own leadership capabilities, tell us about a time
when you led a team or project successfully. What you think you did
to enable this?
 What do you think are your strongest traits as a leader, and what
areas do you feel you need to continue developing, and why?
 Tell us about a time when you have had to engage the people
around you in a new activity. How did you approach this and what
was the outcome?
 Talk us through a time when you have led and managed a diverse
team of people. What were some of the challenges you faced?
 Describe a time when you have had to manage a difficult person or
situation. How did you approach this? What did you learn?

Page 1 of 5 (Recruitment Toolkit – Example interview questions)

Future Leaders Fellows Development Network
w: flfdevnet.com e: [email protected]
 How do you support and enable those you are leading/managing to
continue to grow and develop? Give us an example of when you
have done this effectively and describe the outcome(s).
 How do you encourage others to perform at their best?

Research interests/capability
 Tell us about your research interests and what it is about these that
really motivate you.
 Tell us about a research paper you have read or heard at a
conference recently that really inspired you. What was it about the
paper that had this impact on you?
 What is it about this particular role that attracts you? What do you
hope to learn/gain from this role?
 What do you see as the most important qualities for a researcher?
How do you demonstrate these in your day-to-day work?
 What is your experience of working on world/sector leading
research?
 What is your experience of this type of research/analysis/challenge?
 What is your biggest success so far in research?
 Tell us about the research outputs of which you are most proud.
 How do you support a strong and positive research group culture?
 Tell us about any experience you have of obtaining funding.

Managing change
 Talk us through a time when you have had to cope in a period of
significant change and uncertainty. What has this taught you about
yourself and how you work with others during such periods?
 Give us an example of when things have not gone as you had
planned. How did you react to this? What did you learn from this?
 Tell us about a time when you had to accommodate unplanned
activities or demands.

Problem solving
 Give us an example of a work-related challenge you have faced in
the last year and how you addressed this.
 Give an example of a time when the usual methods did not resolve
a problem or fix an issue. What did you do?
 Tell us about a time when you have enabled others to find solutions
to particular challenges. How did you approach this?

Page 2 of 5 (Recruitment Toolkit – Example interview questions)

Future Leaders Fellows Development Network
w: flfdevnet.com e: [email protected]
 What barriers do you think will impact on the progress and
management of this project/post?

Teamwork
 Tell us about a time when you have worked as part of a team. What
did you contribute and how do you think your colleagues
experienced you?
 How do you engage and work with people who are completely
different personality types to you? Can you give us an example of
this and your approach?
 Talk us through how you would approach stepping into, or creating,
a new team. What would your initial steps look and feel like?
 What do you find most challenging about working in a team? And
how do you manage this?
 Describe the most successful, or best, team you have ever been
part of. What was it about this team that made it this way?
 Which of your qualities or characteristics make you a better team
player, and why?
 Can you tell us about a time when you have brought together a
group of individuals to resolve and issue and come up with an
agreed way forward? How did you seek and achieve agreement?
 What will be your approach to working with the other team
members/partners/disciplines/sectors in this role/project?

Managing projects
 Give an example of a project you personally planned, implemented,
measured, and evaluated.
 Describe a situation when you coordinated several events or people
at the same time.
 Tell us about a recent job situation that required great precision and
quality to complete a task.
 Tell us how you manage your daily work schedule to meet quality
and time expectations.
 What is your approach to keeping your work on track?

External engagement
 What do you consider to be the potential/most important non-
academic impacts of this research project?

Page 3 of 5 (Recruitment Toolkit – Example interview questions)

Future Leaders Fellows Development Network
w: flfdevnet.com e: [email protected]
 Tell us about any experience you have had of working with policy
makers, businesses or other end users.

Maintaining standards/quality
 How do you achieve and maintain high quality in your work and how
do you know you are doing this effectively?
 Tell us about how you’ve embedded research integrity
considerations into your work with others.
 Talk us through an example of where you have sought and received
feedback. How did you approach this and what changed as a result?

Learning/development/self-awareness
 Tell us about a time when you have engaged in some learning or
development. How did you approach this and what did you notice
about how this impacted on your work?
 Talk us through a time when you were very aware of being out of
your comfort zone. How did you manage this?
 Tell us about a time when you were working at your best. How
might others have been experiencing you?
 How will this role impact on your future carer plans?

Working inclusively
 How would you define or understand diversity and inclusion? What
does this mean to you?
 What kind of experience have you had of working with people from
different cultural backgrounds to your own? What have you learned
from this?
 Talk us through how you would/or have manage(d) a situation when
one of your colleagues has made a discriminatory comment.
 How would you promote equality, diversity, and inclusion within the
team you lead/ or are part of?

Summary and general questions:

 Do you have anything you would like to ask us?
 Is there anything else you would like us to know with respect to your
application and suitability for the post?
 What is your availability, and is there any flexibility in this?

Page 4 of 5 (Recruitment Toolkit – Example interview questions)

Future Leaders Fellows Development Network
w: flfdevnet.com e: [email protected]
Follow up questions (to encourage the candidate to expand on an
answer):
 What was the impact for you?
 How has this helped you in your job?
 What was the result?
 What did you do?
 What was the outcome?
 How did they react?
 What was the situation?
 What steps did you take?
 What did you learn from this experience?
 Was there anything that you would have done differently?
 How did you react?
 How did you contribute?
 What was the issue and how did it turn out?
 How did it impact your relationship with the team?

A useful structure for follow-up questions is the STAR model. This

webpage on the STAR method from the National Career Service describes
the model in more detail. It is written for the candidate rather than
interviewer but will help you formulate questions that elicit a fully rounded
answer.

This document is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY)
licence. Please attribute the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network and
UKRI if you reuse it.