- By role and competency
- STAR method
- US and UK legal
Interview Questions to Ask Candidates: 150+ Questions by Role and Competency (2026)
What are the best interview questions to ask candidates? The most predictive questions are behavioral («Tell me about a time when…») because they force the candidate to provide concrete past evidence, not opinions. Combined with situational questions («What would you do if…?») and role-specific technical questions, they form the strongest structure for a modern hiring interview.
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You’ve run three interviews for the same role this week and they all blur together.
Candidates say what you want to hear, you can’t pin down clear evidence, and by the end you’re picking the one you connected with most. The problem isn’t your gut — it’s the question list you walked in with.
At Voicit we analyze thousands of interviews from US and UK recruiters, and the pattern is always the same: low-quality interviews use generic questions like «what are your strengths?» The interviews that actually predict performance use behavioral, situational, and technical questions designed for each competency. This guide gives you 150+ interview questions to ask candidates, organized by role and competency, with example responses that reveal the strong candidates — and the ones who are improvising. Works for phone, video, and in-person interviews.
01
The 5 question types every interview should cover
An effective interview isn’t a list of 30 random questions. It’s a script that combines five distinct question types, each designed to evaluate a different dimension of the candidate. If you only use one type (most common: only open-ended «tell me about yourself» questions), you lose 70% of the information the interview could give you.
Behavioral
Situational
Technical
Cultural fit and motivation
Career trajectory
Each type evaluates a distinct dimension. The balanced combination is what separates predictive interviews from coffee-chat interviews.
02
The STAR method for behavioral questions
STAR is the most widely used framework in modern hiring to structure behavioral questions. Every behavioral question should let the candidate respond with all four components:
S — Situation
T — Task
A — Action
R — Result
A well-formulated behavioral question starts with verbs like «Tell me about», «Describe», or «Walk me through», and ends forcing the candidate to recount a specific case rather than a generic opinion.
If the candidate responds in abstract terms («I always try to…»), follow up directly: «Can you walk me through a specific instance where this happened?». The difference between candidates with real experience and those without is in their ability to surface the situation in detail.
03
35 behavioral interview questions to ask candidates
Behavioral questions are the strongest predictors of performance. These are organized by the competency they evaluate.
Communication
Soft skillWhen to use: sales, customer-facing roles, leadership, consulting, HR, any role with executive exposure.
- Tell me about a time you had to explain a complex concept to a non-technical stakeholder. How did you approach it?
- Describe a moment when your message wasn’t well received. What did you do next?
- Walk me through a difficult conversation you had at work. How did you prepare for it?
- How do you adapt your communication style based on who you’re talking to: customer, manager, peer, direct report?
- Tell me about a time you had to say «no» to a reasonable request from a customer or your manager.
- Describe a piece of written communication you’re particularly proud of. What made it effective?
- Tell me about a presentation that didn’t land. What would you do differently?
Problem solving and decision making
Soft skillWhen to use: consulting, engineering, operations, mid-management, any qualified role.
- Tell me about the most difficult problem you’ve solved at work. How did you approach it?
- Describe a situation where your first solution didn’t work. What did you do?
- Give me an example of a problem you spotted before anyone else. How did you see it?
- What do you do when you face a problem with no precedent in your team?
- Tell me about a decision you made with incomplete information. How did you assess the risk?
- Walk me through a data-driven decision you made against your gut instinct.
- Describe a time you had to challenge consensus on a decision.
Teamwork and collaboration
Soft skillWhen to use: almost any role, especially startups, agencies, cross-functional teams.
- Describe the most effective team you’ve been part of. What made it special?
- Tell me about a conflict you had with a coworker. How did you resolve it?
- Give me an example of a time you had to collaborate with someone you didn’t get along with.
- How do you handle a teammate who isn’t pulling their weight?
- Tell me about a time you changed your opinion thanks to a teammate’s input.
- Describe a successful cross-functional project you led. What was your role?
- Tell me about a time you advocated for a teammate who wasn’t in the room.
Time management and prioritization
Soft skillWhen to use: roles juggling multiple projects, managers, IC roles with autonomy.
- Tell me about a week you were overloaded. How did you decide what to do and what to drop?
- Describe your personal system for organizing tasks and deadlines.
- Give me an example of when you had to say «no» to an interesting project due to capacity constraints.
- How do you distinguish urgent from important in your day-to-day?
- Tell me about a time you missed a deadline. What happened and what did you learn?
- Walk me through how you’d plan your first 30 days in this role.
- What’s your approach when three high-priority requests land simultaneously?
Adaptability and learning
Soft skillWhen to use: startups, digital transformation, roles with frequent change.
- Tell me about a major change your company implemented that you didn’t initially see clearly.
- Describe the last time you had to learn something new under pressure.
- Give me an example of a time your role changed overnight. How did you handle it?
- How do you react when a strategic decision you disagree with gets approved?
- Tell me about a significant professional failure. What did you learn from it?
- Walk me through the most recent skill you’ve added to your toolkit.
- Describe a time you had to unlearn something to grow.
04
Interview questions by role: Sales, Engineering, CS, Marketing, Managers, Operations
The right question depends heavily on the role. This is where most interview templates fall short — they treat every candidate the same regardless of position. Use the question sets below as a starting point and adapt to your specific stack.
Each role type prioritizes different competencies. Customize the question mix accordingly.
Sales reps and Account Executives
Focus on: behavioral resilience, situational deal handling, motivation tied to quota.
- Tell me about your largest deal lost. What would you do differently?
- Walk me through your discovery call structure for a new prospect.
- What would you do if a key customer threatens to churn because a competitor offers 30% less?
- How do you handle a deal that’s been stuck in stage 4 for 3 months?
- Tell me about a time you closed a deal when you weren’t the cheapest option.
- How do you manage your pipeline at the end of a quarter when you’re 20% short of target?
Software engineers
Focus on: technical depth, situational tradeoffs, collaboration with non-technical stakeholders.
- Walk me through a technical decision you made recently and the tradeoffs you evaluated.
- Describe a system you designed end-to-end. What would you change today?
- What would you do if you discovered a critical security vulnerability mid-sprint?
- How do you handle a non-technical PM asking for something that creates significant tech debt?
- Tell me about a production incident you owned. How did you handle communication?
- How do you decide between fixing technical debt and shipping new features?
Customer Success managers
Focus on: behavioral empathy, situational escalations, retention motivation.
- Tell me about the toughest customer renewal you’ve handled.
- Walk me through how you onboard a new enterprise customer.
- What would you do if a high-MRR account suddenly went quiet for 4 weeks?
- How do you balance proactive outreach with reactive support?
- Describe a time you escalated an issue to product. How did you frame it?
- How do you measure success in your role beyond NPS?
Marketing professionals
Focus on: behavioral creativity, technical analytics, motivation tied to growth metrics.
- Walk me through a campaign you ran from concept to results.
- Describe a marketing experiment that failed. What did you learn?
- How do you measure attribution across multi-touch journeys?
- Tell me about a time you killed a project that was your idea.
- What would you do if your CAC tripled in a quarter?
- How do you balance brand-building investments with performance marketing?
People managers and team leads
Focus on: leadership behavior, situational team conflict, cultural fit with company values.
- Tell me about the best team you’ve ever managed. What did you do to build it?
- Describe the most difficult conversation you’ve had with a direct report.
- Walk me through how you handle underperformance.
- Tell me about a time you had to let someone go.
- How do you handle a brilliant but toxic team member?
- What would you do in your first 30 days leading a team in crisis?
Operations and supply chain
Focus on: technical process design, situational crisis management, attention to detail.
- Walk me through a process you redesigned. What did you measure before and after?
- Describe a major operational incident you owned.
- What would you do if your main supplier failed mid-quarter?
- How do you balance cost optimization with quality assurance?
- Tell me about a time you scaled a process from 10x to 100x volume.
- What’s your approach to identifying bottlenecks no one’s noticed?
05
25 situational interview questions
Situational questions («What would you do if…?») work best when the candidate doesn’t yet have the experience to answer behavioral ones — junior roles, career changes, recent graduates — or when you want to evaluate professional judgment regardless of past experience.
Universal situational questions
- What would you do if your manager asked you to do something you disagreed with ethically?
- How would you handle discovering a peer is taking credit for your work?
- If you noticed a process inefficiency that’s been there for years, what would you do?
- What would you do if you spotted a mistake your VP made in a board presentation?
- How would you respond to a deadline being moved up by 50%?
Conflict and pressure scenarios
- What would you do if two stakeholders gave you contradictory priorities?
- How would you handle being publicly criticized in a team meeting?
- What would you do if a vendor missed a critical SLA right before a launch?
- If a customer asked you to do something against company policy, what would you do?
- How would you de-escalate a tense conversation with a senior leader?
Strategic judgment scenarios
- If you had a $50K budget and one quarter to improve your team’s output, where would you invest it?
- How would you choose between two equally qualified candidates for a key role?
- What would you do if your top performer asked for a 30% raise?
- If a competitor launched a feature 6 months ahead of you, how would you respond?
- How would you handle a major strategic pivot mid-quarter?
Customer and stakeholder scenarios
- How would you handle a customer who is wrong but insists they’re right?
- What would you do if you discovered your product caused a customer financial harm?
- If a stakeholder asks for weekly reporting that takes 8 hours each week, what would you do?
- How would you push back on an unreasonable timeline from a senior leader?
- What would you do if you uncovered evidence of unethical behavior by a colleague?
Self-management scenarios
- What would you do if you realized halfway through a quarter you couldn’t hit your goals?
- How would you handle being given a project you find boring but important?
- What would you do if your manager left and you were asked to step up temporarily?
- How would you onboard yourself if your manager was unavailable for your first month?
- What would you do if you noticed you were losing motivation in your role?
06
Cultural fit and motivation questions
Cultural fit questions are the most underrated and the ones that explain why a brilliant candidate leaves after 6 months. They’re not about finding someone «like everyone else» — they’re about identifying alignment with values and the current company stage.
Career motivation
Cultural fit- Why this role and why now in your career? (Watch for generic answers like «I want to grow»)
- What keeps you up at night professionally?
- Tell me about the best manager you’ve ever had. What made them special?
- Tell me about the worst work environment you’ve been in. What was broken?
- If you could design your ideal job in 5 years, what would it look like?
- What would make you turn down a 20% pay raise from another company?
Values and self-awareness
Cultural fit- What three values would your current manager say describe you?
- Tell me about a time you felt deeply aligned with your work. What made it special?
- What kind of company culture lets you flourish, and which suffocates you?
- What would you change about how you work today?
- Tell me about a professional decision you made against your immediate financial interest.
- How would your closest collaborator describe your strengths and blind spots?
Company stage fit
Cultural fit- What’s the biggest difference between a Fortune 500 and a startup, from your experience?
- What ambiguity are you willing to tolerate to get autonomy?
- Tell me about a time you had to «do everything» on a project. How did you experience it?
- How do you feel about working without clear precedents to follow?
- What question would you want to ask us to know if this is the right fit for you?
07
Questions you should NEVER ask in an interview (US and UK legal)
Many of these are not just unethical — they’re illegal under US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the UK Equality Act 2010. Avoid:
«Are you married or in a relationship?»
«Do you have children or plan to have them?»
«How old are you?»
«What’s your nationality / where are you originally from?»
«What’s your religion?»
«Do you have any disabilities?»
«What’s your salary history?»
«What are your weaknesses?»
«Tell me about yourself.»
08
How to structure a 60-minute interview
Structure is what separates predictive interviews from «coffee chat» interviews. This is the template we recommend to the hiring teams we work with.
Opening (5 min)
Interviewer and company introduction. Process explanation and duration. Consent request if recording.
Warm-up (5 min)
1-2 open-ended career questions to relax the candidate. E.g.: «Walk me through the two most important moments of your career and why you choose them as the principal ones.»
Behavioral and technical block (35 min)
4-6 behavioral questions on key role competencies (STAR method). 2-3 technical questions to verify depth. 1-2 situational questions to validate professional judgment.
Cultural fit and motivation (10 min)
2-3 questions on alignment with company values and stage. 1 question on career trajectory.
Candidate’s questions (5 min)
Genuine opening. The quality of the candidate’s questions is valuable information.
09
Question libraries by competency, role and format
The questions above are organised by type and by role. If you would rather work from a single competency, a specific role or a stage of the process — and want the follow-up prompts, the red flags and a scoring scale for each question — each one has its own guide in the interview questions library:
By competency
By role
And to score every candidate the same way, download the interview scorecard template (Excel, Word and PDF).
The rest of the interviewer toolkit lives in the same library: an interview evaluation form to rate candidates against the same criteria, an interview notes template so your notes are usable a week later, a bank of competency-based interview questions, and a guide to recording interviews and consent laws if you plan to record and transcribe.
10
Actionable summary
If you only take three ideas from this guide:
Behavioral questions are the strongest predictors of performance.
Structure your interview by competency before walking into the room.
Free up your attention from admin work.
The questions in this guide are designed for hiring managers, recruiters, and talent acquisition teams who want to improve the predictive quality of their interviews. Always adapt the script to the specific role and sector. Voicit doesn’t replace the interviewer: it frees them from administrative work afterward so they can listen better during the conversation.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How many interview questions to ask candidates in a single interview?
For a 60-minute interview, between 8 and 12 main questions (with follow-ups for depth). Beyond that, you don’t have time for the candidate to respond to behavioral questions in the depth they require.
What’s the best opening question?
Avoid the generic «Tell me about yourself.» It works much better: «Walk me through the two most important moments of your career and why you choose them as the principal ones.» It lets the candidate show what they value, their narrative, and their resume’s key points in their own words.
What are the most common interview trick questions and should I use them?
«What are your weaknesses?» (everyone prepares an answer), «Why should we hire you?» (it’s a test, not a real question), «Where do you see yourself in 5 years?» (everyone knows the expected answer). In a modern interview, replace these with behavioral questions that demand real evidence.
What do I do if a candidate only answers in abstract terms with no examples?
Follow up directly: «Can you walk me through a specific instance where this happened?». If after the follow-up they still can’t surface a specific example, the experience likely doesn’t exist at the level they claim. Mark it as a red flag.
Is it legal to record a job interview in the US and UK?
Yes, with the candidate’s explicit consent before starting the recording, explaining what it will be used for, who will see it, and how long it will be retained. Practices vary: some US states require two-party consent (CA, FL, IL, MD, MA, MT, NH, PA, WA), others one-party. UK GDPR requires explicit consent and right to erasure.
How much weight should technical questions have versus soft skills?
Depends on role and seniority. For junior roles, soft skills and motivation weigh more (capacity to learn). For seniors, technical questions weigh more because there’s already a track record. Common practice: 50/50 for mid-management; 60/40 toward technical for senior IC roles; 60/40 toward soft skills for leadership roles.
How do I avoid bias when asking interview questions?
Three practices: (1) use the same question structure for every candidate in the process (structured interview), (2) evaluate immediately after the interview using a scorecard rather than later, (3) have more than one evaluator and compare independently. If you record with consent, you can review specific responses instead of debating perceptions.
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