Interviewing

The employment interview is vital to the hiring process. Successful interviewing requires preparation, attentive listening, and a thorough understanding of the job and the minimum required qualifications of candidates. Use the resources on this page to help plan and conduct your job interview.

The goals of a job interview include:
  • Assess the candidate and determine whether there is a good fit between the candidate’s capabilities and the position requirements
  • Describe the job and working conditions
  • Create goodwill for the organization, whether or not the candidate is hired

Prepare for the Interview

  • Choose an interview committee.
  • Prepare questions exploring past job performance and covering position functions. The sample questions below can help.
  • You may contact the HR Employment Office for assistance in developing behavioral interview questions.
  • Meet with the interview committee to review the questions and logistics of the interview.
  • Use the same interview questions for each candidate.

Interviewing Details

Avoid Improper Questions

Do not solicit information that employers are legally barred from considering in the hiring process. 

For example, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and similar state laws, it is illegal to discriminate against individual candidates on the basis of the following:

  • Race
  • Religion
  • Creed
  • Sex, pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions
  • Marital status
  • National origin
  • Ancestry

Other laws prohibit questions about military background, age, disability, or union membership.  Generally, do not ask about:

  • Medical or mental health history
  • National origin and citizenship status
  • Height, weight, or physical characteristics
  • Disability
  • Membership in professional or civic organizations that would reveal national origin, race, gender, religion, or any of the other protected classes under fair employment practice laws
  • Military service history
  • Marital status
  • Sexual orientation
  • Age
  • Receipt of unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, or disability benefits
  • Child care situation, family planning, or number of children
  • Religion or religious beliefs

The following are samples of questions which should be avoided. This is not an all-inclusive list.

Personal Data

  • "What is your maiden name?"
  • "Do you own or rent your home?"
  • "What is your age?"
  • "Where do you live?"
  • "What is your date of birth?"
  • "Are you married?"
  • Questions which tend to identify an applicant's age as over 40.

Education

  • The dates of attendance or completion of elementary or high school.

Citizenship

  • Birthplace of applicant or of applicant's parents, spouse or other relative.
  • "Are you a U.S. Citizen?" or "What is your citizenship or that of your parents, spouse or other relative?"
  • Questions as to race, nationality, national origin, or descent.
  • "What is your mother's tongue?" or "What is the language you speak at home?"

Family

  • Applicant's marital status.
  • The number or ages of children or dependents.
  • Provisions for child care.
  • Pregnancy, childbearing or birth control.

Medical

  • Questions which indicate an applicant's sex.
  • The applicant's height and weight.
  • Applicant's general medical condition, state of health, or illness.
  • Questions regarding HIV, AIDS, and related questions.
  • "Have you ever filed a workers compensation claim?"
  • "Do you have any mental or physical disabilities or handicaps?"

Associations

  • "Have you ever been arrested?"
  • Applicant's credit rating.
  • Ownership of a car.
  • Organizations, clubs, societies or lodges which an applicant belongs to.
  • Religious obligations that would prevent an individual from being available to work on Friday evenings, Saturdays, Sundays or holidays.
  • Asking an applicant the origin of their name.
  • "Do you speak __________________?" (unless a requirement for the job).
  • "Do you have any physical or mental disability/handicap that will require reasonable accommodation?"

Question Types

Employers should try to include questions that go beyond a candidate’s technical competence or knowledge. 

The interviewer should probe for qualities needed to succeed at the job:

  • Organizational skill
  • Willingness to put in the extra time and effort necessary to complete a project

Relevant and job-related questions might target the following:

  • Incomplete information on application form
  • Work experience or education
  • Gaps in work history
  • Geographic preferences
  • Normal working hours
  • Willingness to travel
  • Reasons for leaving or planning to leave previous job
  • Job-related achievements
  • Signs of initiative and self-management
  • Specialized knowledge or expertise
  • Meaning of former job titles

Close-Ended Questions

Close-ended questions are most commonly asked in interviewing and are the most commonly misused questions.  The following is an example of an ineffective closed-ended question:  “Can you work under pressure?”  Only “Yes” and “No” are the possible answers.  The interviewer has no information and no way of evaluating any one candidate against another.  However, a closed-ended question would be appropriate and useful as a questioning technique when looking for a commitment from the individual, for example: “Can you start on Monday?”

A closed-end question also helps interviewers in an attempt to refresh their own memory or in verifying information from earlier in the interviewing sequence:  “You were with Company X for 10 years?” 

Interviewers may also utilize the close-ended technique as preparation for a series of questions on the same subject.

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions often yield better results than close-ended.  Open-ended questions do not lend themselves to monosyllabic answers; instead, the question requires an explanation.  For example, the following open-ended question requires a detailed answer:  “How do you succeed in working under pressure?”

As a rule, open-ended questions are preferable to closed-ended questions because such questions require the candidate to speak while the interviewer listens.  Open-ended questions often begin as follows:

  • “Tell me about a time . . .”
  • “Describe a situation where . . .”

Behavioral Questions

The technique of asking behavioral questions has developed into a unique style of interviewing.  Behavioral questions are based on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future performance. 

Behavioral questions are open-ended and request specific examples of past behavior.  Such questions elicit conversation and are usually prefaced with something similar to the following:

  • “Share with me an experience when . . .”
  • “Give me an example of . . .”

Used appropriately, behavioral questions make it difficult for the candidate to misrepresent past performance.

Negative-Balance Questions

Interviewers often assume, albeit incorrectly, that a candidate who is strong in one area is equally impressive in all areas.  This is not always the case. 

To avoid this assumption, an interviewer may ask the following questions:

  • “That is very impressive.  Could you please describe an occasion when the situation did not work out to your advantage?”
  • “Additionally, please offer an example of an aspect in this area where you struggle(d).”

Negative Confirmation

When interviewers have sought and found negative balance, they may feel content that they are maintaining their objectivity and move on or that an answer they receive may be disturbing enough to warrant negative confirmation.

For example, an interviewee tells the interviewer about a situation when the individual felt that it was necessary to go around or behind a supervisor to achieve a goal.  A manager should be troubled because if such behavior is common, the person may not be desirable to hire.  Consequently, negative confirmation should be sought with perhaps the following:  “That is very interesting.  Let’s talk about another time when you had to . . .

Successive examples will help interviewers confirm negative traits and perhaps save the employer from hiring a candidate unfit for the employment position.  On the other hand, interviewers may establish that the negative situation was a peculiarity — a one-time thing — and nothing that would potentially disqualify a candidate. 

Reflexive Questions

Reflexive questions function to close a line of questioning and move the conversation forward.  Reflexive questions help interviewers calmly maintain control of the conversation no matter how talkative the interviewee.

When a candidate begins to stray from the topic of the questions, the interviewer can easily interject with a reflexive question that will allow the interviewer to proceed with other topics. 

An interviewer may accomplish this by adding phrases, such as the following, to the end of a statement:

  • Don’t you?
  • Couldn’t you?
  • Wouldn’t you?
  • Didn’t you?
  • Can’t you?
  • Aren’t you?

For example, the interviewer might say, “With time so short, I think it would be valuable to move onto another area, don’t you?”  The candidate’s reflex is to agree, and the conversation moves on.

Mirror Questions

Mirror statements function as a subtle form of probing in conjunction with silence.  To use the technique, the interviewer mirrors or paraphrases a key statement made by the candidate and then remains silent while offering positive reinforcement through body language such as nodding, and looking attentively at the interviewee.

Interviewers should use mirror statements to fully understand a candidate’s answer and gain more insight through the candidate’s detailed explanation.  For example, an interviewer would repeat the substance of an interviewee’s key comment in a question form, “Whenever you arrive two hours early for work, you then leave work two hours early to compensate yourself for your time?”  Upon completion of the question, the interviewer would patiently wait for the interviewee to expand on the mirrored statement, without a further interjection from the interviewer.  This technique allows the candidate to hear verbatim the words they chose as an answer and volunteer further details.

Loaded Questions

Loaded questions are inappropriate as they may lead to manipulation by the interviewer.  Loaded questions are fundamentally problematic because questions require the interviewee to decide between equally unsuitable options.  For instance, the following is a loaded question: “Which do you think is the lesser evil, embezzlement or forgery?”

Obviously, the interviewer should avoid absurd, loaded questions.  However, carefully balanced judgment-call questions may have a place in a good interview.  The technique may allow the interviewer to probe the interviewee’s decision-making approaches. 

For example, the interviewer may want to recall a real-life situation where two divergent approaches were both carefully considered and may do so by framing the situation as a question:

  • “I’m curious to know what you have done when . . .”
  • “What has been your approach in situations where . . .”

Half-Right Reflexives

Half-right reflexives can be utilized to glean specific answers and determine an individual’s propensity for specific work-related incidents.  To employ the technique, the interviewer must make a partially correct statement and ask the interviewee to agree. 

With half-right reflexives, the interviewee has the opportunity to offer personalized and experienced insights in regard to workplace dilemmas and situations.  However, the interviewee may also demonstrate a lack of experience or inability to perform required tasks of the job. 

This technique creates enlightening insights.  For instance, this example of a half-right reflexive always generates fascinating responses:  “I’ve always felt that customer service should commence only after the bill has been paid, haven’t you?”

Leading Questions

Leading questions allow interviewers to lead the listener toward a specific type of answer.  Leading questions often arise accidentally when the interviewer explains what type of organization the interviewee will be joining.  For instance, the interviewer might proudly exclaim, “We’re a fast-growing outfit here, and there is constant pressure to meet deadlines and satisfy our ever-increasing list of customers”, then ask, “How do you handle stress?” 

In the interviewers statement the basic principles and requirements of the job are made clear and thus, the correct answer to any further question is a simple paraphrase of the interviewers own statement.

Leading questions are often useful, but like closed-ended questions, the interviewer must use leading questions appropriately.  As information verifiers, leading questions encourage the candidate to expand on a particular topic, for example, “We are an organization that believes the customer is always right.  How do you feel about that?”

However, leading questions should be used only after establishing a candidate’s belief or performance in a particular area.  In any case, leading questions should not be used early in the interview or be confused with the half-right reflexive.

Question Layering

A good question poorly phrased will be ineffectual and provide the interviewer with incomplete or misleading information.  However, question layering allows an interviewer to thoroughly probe and answer on many different levels.  For example, when an interviewer wants to determine whether a candidate could work well under pressure the basic line of questioning (“Can you work under pressure?”) may prove to be the wrong approach because the question:
  • requires only a yes or no answer, which fails to provide adequate information for the interviewer
  • leads the interviewee toward the type of answer the individual knows the interviewer wants

Instead, interviewers can use a combination of all the questioning styles and techniques to examine the topic from every angle.  For example, to examine all angles of a topic the interviewer may ask:

  • Who?
  • What?
  • When?
  • Where?
  • Why?
  • How?

Similarly, the interviewer does the same by joining the closed-ended question with some of the other question techniques. 

The following sequence demonstrates how much more relevant information an interviewer can glean through question layering:

  • Tell me about a time when you worked under pressure.  (Open-ended.)
  • So, it was tough to meet the deadline?  (Mirror statement.)
  • How did this pressure situation arise?  (Question layering.)
  • Who was responsible?  (Question layering.)
  • Why was this allowed to occur?  (Question layering.)
  • Where did the problem originate?  (Question layering.)

These questions illustrate several different angles to the same question, each revealing a different aspect of the personality, performance, and behavior of the candidate.  The question layering technique makes the possibilities for questions theoretically endless, depending only on the interviewer’s thoroughness. 

Requesting Additional Information

Interviewers can use the following techniques to gain more information from an initial question:

If the interviewer wants to hear more — whether dissatisfied with the first answer or interested in obtaining more information — the interviewer could say, “Can you provide more detail about that?  It’s very interesting,” or, “Can you give me another example?”

The interviewer may hear an answer and then add, “What did you learn from that experience?”  This is an excellent layering technique that can give insight into judgment and emotional maturity.

Perhaps the best technique for gathering more information is for an interviewer to simply sit quietly, while maintaining eye contact with the interviewee and saying nothing.  If the conversation lulls, the interviewee may instinctually attempt to fill the silence and provide more information and/or details.  Although an interviewer may initially find the silence difficult to manage, patience and allowing the interviewee to speak without encumbrance can be effective. 

Sample Questions

General Experience & Background

  1. What were the most important responsibilities in your most recent position?
  2. Tell me about a typical day in your job at _____.
  3. What special skills did you utilize in your position at _____?
  4. What achievements were you most proud of in your most recent position?
  5. How did you feel about your workload at ______?
  6. Why have you changed jobs so frequently?
  7. What have you learned in the jobs you have held?
  8. Why are you interviewing with us? 
  9. Why do you want to leave your current position?
  10. What are you looking for in a job/position?
  11. What did you like most/least about your last job (or your job at _____)?
  12. What other information should I know about you that would be helpful to me in making my decision?  Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about yourself?

Position

  1. How do you feel about the position?
  2. What interests you most/least about the position?
  3. What can you offer to this position that someone else cannot?  What special characteristics about you should I consider?
  4. What questions do you have about the job or the department?
  5. What qualities do you possess that would help you to be successful in this job?

Education

  1. How did you select your major in college?
  2. What jobs did you hold in college?  What was your biggest challenge in these positions?
  3. What has been your least and most valuable work experience?
  4. What extracurricular activities did you participate in?  What did you learn from these activities?
  5. How did you stay organized in school?  How did you prioritize in school?
  6. What subjects did you excel in at school?  Why?
  7. What courses have you taken that are directly transferable to the job?
  8. What kinds of skills have you acquired as a result of your education?

Skills & Abilities

First determine which specific dimensions of performance you think are important to this position. Then, review the sample questions below.

Adaptability

  1. Tell me about a change that you have had to manage within your organization.
  2. Describe a time when you have had to respond quickly to something within a changing environment.
  3. Have you ever had to introduce a change into your department that was met with resistance?  How did you handle the situation?
  4. Have you ever worked hard on something and then had your priorities change mid-stream?  How did it make you feel?  What did you do?
  5. How have you had to adapt your work style to fit the needs of others?
  6. Tell me about a difficult adjustment that you have had to make in a job/position.
  7. How often has your work been interrupted by unforeseen circumstances?  What do you do when this happens?

Analytical Skills

Tell me about a time when you've had to use your analytical skills to solve a problem.

Attention to Detail

  1. Give me an example of a time when you found errors in your work.  What caused the errors?  How did you correct your mistakes?
  2. Have you ever had to proofread or check detailed information?  How well did you do?
  3. Tell me about how you make your work as accurate as possible.
  4. How do you manage details so that they don’t fall through the cracks?
  5. Have you had to handle a lot of details in your previous positions?

Being Managed

  1. Give me an example of something that you and your boss have disagreed about.  How did you handle the situation?  Have you ever disagreed with a decision that your boss has made?  What did you do?
  2. Which one of your bosses managed you the best?  Why?
  3. Describe the best boss you have ever had.
  4. Tell me about a time when you were reluctant to talk with your supervisor about something.
  5. When do you need help from your supervisor?  Give me a recent example.
  6. What kind of direction do you like to receive from your supervisor?
  7. What kind of manager do you find most difficult to work for?

Creativity

  1. What is the most creative idea you have ever come up with?
  2. Tell me about a time when you approached an issue creatively.
  3. I’m going to present you with a problem.  Tell me what creative approaches you might use to solve it.

Customer Service

  1. Tell me about a challenging customer service situation and how you handled it.
  2. What does customer service mean to you?
  3. Who are your customers (internal and external)?
  4. Give me an example of a time when you made an extra effort to service a customer.
  5. Tell me about the nicest compliment you’ve ever received from a customer.
  6. How many interactions with customers did you have in your position at___?
  7. How do you ensure that your customers are satisfied?
  8. How do you decide the best way/method to sell something to a customer?
  9. What does good customer service mean to you?
  10. How do you handle difficult people over the phone?  Tell me about a challenging situation that you have had to handle over the phone.

Decision-Making

  1. What is the most difficult decision you have had to make on the job?
  2. What kinds of decisions have you had to make in your previous positions?
  3. Have you ever had to make an unpopular decision?  Walk me through how you handled it.
  4. What kinds of decisions are most difficult for you to make?
  5. Describe a time when you had to make a decision under severe time constraints.
  6. Walk me through how you go about making an important decision.
  7. Have you ever had to make an important decision when your boss was away?  What were the circumstances?
  8. Have you ever had to bend a rule to accomplish something?  Please explain.
  9. Give me an example of a time when you weren’t comfortable making a decision.  What did you do?
  10. How much decision making power do you give to your employees?

Delegation

  1. What are some examples of tasks, etc. that you consider inappropriate to delegate?
  2. What kinds of things do you delegate?
  3. What are some projects, tasks, etc. you would like to delegate but cannot?
  4. Do you think you delegate responsibilities as effectively as you should?
  5. Walk me through the process you use to delegate work to your employees.
  6. Who is in charge of your area when you are gone?
  7. Have you ever delegated something that you wish you hadn’t?

Formal Presentations

  1. What experience do you have giving presentations?  What kinds of presentations have you delivered (i.e. on what topics did you present)?  Did you present to large or small groups?  What was the level and size of your audience?
  2. Tell me about a stressful time that you had delivering a presentation.  How did you handle it?
  3. How do you typically prepare to deliver a presentation?
  4. Have you ever had a time where you weren’t successful in delivering a presentation?  Why wasn’t it successful?  What would you do differently now?
  5. Give me an example of a time when you’ve had to give a presentation to a group on very short notice.  How did you prepare?  How well was it received?

Managing Deadlines

  1. Give me an example of a time when you had to work on a project under an immediate deadline.  How did you handle it?  Were you successful at meeting the deadline?  Why or why not?
  2. How do you handle working under pressure and immediate deadlines?  Please explain.

Initiative

  1. What have you done in your position that demonstrates initiative?
  2. Tell me about a time when you went the extra mile.
  3. Is it ever necessary to go above and beyond the call of duty to get your job done?  Give me an example.
  4. Have you ever suggested an idea that saved the company money?
  5. What are some examples of situations where you improved something in your department?
  6. If there was a decision to be made and no procedure existed for it, what would you do?

Interpersonal

  1. Tell me about a time when you worked on a project that required you to interact with different levels within the company.
  2. Have you had any interpersonal challenges?  How did you handle them?
  3. Did you work alone much in your previous job?
  4. In working with new people, how do you get to know their work styles?
  5. What are your interpersonal strengths?
  6. Can you give me an example of a time when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with?  How did you handle it?
  7. Tell me about a situation where you wish you had acted differently with someone at work.
  8. Have you ever had to deal with someone who is very sensitive or easily offended?  What did you do?

Management

  1. Describe the management/supervisory responsibilities in your most recent position.
  2. How would you describe your management style?
  3. How do you lead by example in your management style?
  4. How do you motivate your employees?

Negotiation

  1. Tell me about a successful negotiation that you’ve had.
  2. Walk me through the steps you use for successful negotiation.
  3. Have you ever had an unsuccessful negotiation?  Why wasn’t it successful?  What would you do differently next time?
  4. How did you learn to negotiate?
  5. If I was negotiating with you for ____, walk me through how you would handle the negotiation.
  6. Tell me about a time when you have had to compromise significantly during a negotiation.

Planning & Organizing

  1. How do you organize your day?  How did you organize yourself in your position at ___?
  2. What kinds of tools do you use to stay organized?
  3. Do you believe more in planning, or in “diving in head first” and starting to work immediately?  Why?  Give me an example of when this strategy has worked for you.
  4. How far ahead do you plan?  How had planning ahead benefited you in the past?
  5. Describe a time when you had carefully laid plans and things changed at the last minute.  How did you react?
  6. Give me an example of a situation when you had to follow through on work being done by others.  How did you do it?
  7. What experience do you have with scheduling and coordinating?
  8. It’s almost the end of your day and your boss gives you a project that is due first thing in the morning.  What would you do?
  9. How do you prioritize your work?
  10. Give me an example of a time when you had had multiple priorities, and explain how you handled them.
  11. You have several projects that are all “high priority.”  How do you manage them all?

Problem Solving

  1. Describe a time when you felt you were resourceful in solving a problem.
  2. What do you do when you’re having trouble solving a problem?
  3. How do you stay aware of problems in your work area?
  4. Describe a complex issue that you’ve had to resolve and tell me the steps you took to handle it.
  5. What sources of information do you use to solve difficult problems?
  6. What are the biggest problems you have faced in the last 6 months?  What did you do to overcome them?

Risk-taking

  1. Do you consider yourself a risk taker?  Why or why not?
  2. What risks have you taken in your last few jobs, and what was the result of those risks?
  3. Tell me about a risk that turned out successfully.  Tell me about a risk that turned out unsuccessfully.  What would you do differently?

Self-Development

  1. What have you done to be more effective in your position?  What are you currently doing to improve your overall performance?
  2. How do you stay current in your field?
  3. In what areas do you think you need to develop?  What do you consider to be your weaknesses?  During past performance appraisals, what have been cited as your developmental areas?
  4. What are your major strengths?
  5. When compared to others in your field, where do you excel?
  6. As you look at your qualifications for this position, what do you see as some of your development needs?
  7. What do you need to accomplish to feel successful?
  8. How do you know that you are doing a good job?

Staff Development

  1. Tell me about your most recent employee development success story.
  2. How important do you consider staff development?
  3. What are some ways that you’ve developed your staff?
  4. Do you concentrate on developing your employees’ weaknesses or strengths?
  5. Have you ever tried unsuccessfully to improve the performance of an employee?  Why do you think it was unsuccessful?
  6. What are you doing to prepare a back-up for yourself?
  7. Do you focus on developing poor performers or outstanding performers?
  8. How would you handle an employee who has been performing his/her job successfully for 15 years and doesn’t want to develop?
  9. Have you ever had to develop an employee when you had no budget to do so?  What did you do?

Supervision

  1. Tell me about a time when you had to discipline an employee.  Explain the situation and describe what you did.
  2. Describe how you make your feelings known to a group or an individual when you disagree with their view?
  3. What types of work situations frustrate you and why?
  4. Describe the most challenging employee discipline situation you’ve had to handle.
  5. Walk me through the steps you use when dealing with a difficult employee.
  6. How do you give your staff feedback?  How often do you give your staff feedback?
  7. What was the turnover rate in your department over the last__years?
  8. Have you ever had to terminate an employee?  Walk me through the situation and how you handled it.
  9. How many people have you hired?  What steps do you take to make sure you hire effective employees?
  10. Tell me about typical issues that your staff brings to you.  How do you handle these issues?
  11. Have you ever had to communicate information to your staff that you didn’t agree with?  How did you handle the situation?
  12. Did you have responsibility for a budget in your department?  How did you make budgetary decisions?
  13. Were you involved in long-range, organizational planning?  Describe your  efforts and the impact that you had.
  14. How many people reported to you?  What were their titles and responsibilities?
  15. What type of employees do you work best with?
  16. What are some of the day-to-day problems you have faced when supervising others?
  17. How do you train you employees?
  18. How do you recognize positive results of your employees?
  19. What do you like most and least about managing others?
  20. How often do you meet with your employees?  How do you track your employees’ projects?

Teamwork

  1. Give me an example of a time when working with others produced something more successful than if you had completed it on your own.
  2. We all have parts of our jobs that we don’t especially enjoy doing.  Tell me about a situation when you were asked to perform one of those tasks.
  3. Have you ever needed to gain cooperation from individuals who weren’t in your department?  Were you successful at getting their help?  Why or why not?
  4. Tell me about a difficult group of people that you have had to work with.  How did you resolve the situation?
  5. Tell about the most recent success that your team has had.  How did you help them to achieve success?
  6. Give me an example of a time when you pulled your team together under difficult circumstances.
  7. Have you ever had a team effort that wasn’t successful?  How do you think you might have contributed to its failure?  How might you handle it differently now?
  8. Have you ever had to lead a team on a project?  How did you lead the team?
  9. What do you consider to be the advantages of working on a team?  The disadvantages?
  10. Think of a specific time when you emerged as a leader of a group.
  11. Describe a time when you had to work on a project with people outside of your immediate work group.  How were you successful in gaining their cooperation?

Time Management

  1. Tell me about a time when your time management skills really paid off for you.
  2. How do you manage your time?
  3. Tell me about an especially busy time on your job at ______.  Explain how you made it through that time.
  4. How often are you presented with unexpected projects or priorities in your current job?  How do you handle them?
  5. Walk me through an unusually crazy day for you?  How did you manage everything?
  6. How do you handle interruptions at work?
  7. We’ve all had times when we couldn’t complete everything on time.  When has this happened to you, and how did you handle it?
  8. Tell me about a time when you missed a deadline.  How did you handle it?
  9. What systems, processes, procedures, etc. have you set up in your department to make things run more efficiently?
  10. What causes the most stress for you on the job?  How do you manage this stress?
  11. Give me an example of a time when you felt excessive demands was placed on you.  How did you handle the situation?
  12. How do you start a typical day?
  13. How do you manage paperwork?
  14. What kind of deadlines have you had to work under?  How did you manage these deadlines?
  15. What percentage of time do you spend on the phone?