Interview Questions for HR Position

Q1. Tell me about yourself?
What do you want the interviewer to know about you when you leave, your work experience or your personal interests? I’m confident their hiring decision will be based on your work experience, save your personal interests for the water cooler after you get the job.
Briefly talk about your current employer.
Discuss 2-3 of your most significant accomplishments.
Talk about a few of your key strengths as they relate to the job for which you are applying and how they can benefit from your strengths.
Then discuss how you see yourself fitting into a position at their company.

Q2. Assuming that you are selected, what will be your strategy for next 60 days?

If I am selected for this position, I,ll use my initial 60 days in understanding my role carefully in terms of the contribution to the business and increasing the overall profitability. I’ll sit with my line manager and other juniors to understand what has already been done and what its impact has been. From there on, I’ll formulate my strategy to growth in close conjunction with managers and see that it is properly implemented.

Q3. How would you improve upon our product/ company?
Since Id be coming from an altogether new environment, I am bound to possess a new perspective towards everything here including the company, product, customers, environment, strategy etc. This will enable me to constructively question things which anyone else here might not do. This will help in improving the things and making the product & company better.Having worked closely with product development team I understand how the research for product development is carried out and how is customer requirement analysed; Id be able to provide a value addition there too.

Q4. Dont you think, you are overqualified for this position?
You might feel that I possess more degrees than you require for this position. But, I believe that I grow everyday when I talk to my staff, customers and superiors. So, basically the learning process continues through out the life I dont think I am over qualified.

Q5.How do accept criticism?
This is a team player question and is asked to see how open and willing you are to being asked or told what to do. Are you someone who can follow directions? Can you accept criticism? Or, are you the type of person who does not like being told what to do or being criticized?

Q6. I see, there’s some gap in your work history. Why?
Yes, I was feeling exhausted after years of non-stop work. So, I decided to take a break and spend some time with my family on a rejuvenating vacation. I am happy to have returned fully recharged.

Q7. Can you tell us something about your previous boss?
All my bosses possessed some skills worth learning. I have always tried to learn something new from them including my previous boss.

Q8. Is there anything that you do not like about your last or current job?
I was quite enthusiastic while joining my last job. Towards the end, the number of challenges and opportunity to grow further started diminishing. A challenge loving and growth oriented person like me doesn’t enjoy this.

Q9. Why did you leave your last job?
Always answer in a positive manner regarding reason. Never talk negatively or badly about your previous organization. If you do, you will cut a sorry figure. Give suitable reasons for leaving last job.

Q10. Have there been instances, when your decision was challenged by your colleague or manager?
Yes, there have been many such instances. I like people who challenge my decisions rather than following me blindly. This keeps me ensured that I am surrounded by thinking brains rather than just a set of dumb followers.
When someone challenges your decisions, you are bound to rethink over it and the chances of reaching the best option are brighter.

Q11. If you are allowed to change one thing about your last job, what would it be?
I have been working at a senior level since last many years. These roles have always needed me to make real time decisions. Sometimes the facts, figures and other information in real time cases are not complete & still we have to make a decision. In such cases, there exists a probability of making inaccurate decisions.

Knowing this, I usually run down my old decisions to see the outcome. It makes sure that I don’t repeat a mistake ever again in future. While carrying out one such exercise, I realised that the product promotion strategy that I recommended would have been different, if I had had the complete data and figures but there was no way to get them in real time.

Q12. How long can you commit to work with us?
I like new challenges and a chance to grow. As long I keeping getting these, I don’t think I’ll need to switch over. I’d like to believe that this relationship lasts for many years. However, I haven’t set a time limit as such.

Q13. What are some of the things that bother you?
This is a common question, but don’t dwell on it. The interviewer is looking for a job related answer, more like “what bothers you about your job or the people you work with?” If you dig deep and think of what really bothers you, you’ll find that it’s other people and their ideas, right? But don’t tell the interviewer that, you can be more clever than that.
“It bothers me the most when other people I work with don’t meet their deadlines or deliver what they promise.”

Q14. You seem to be drawing a good salary. Will you be OK in taking a salary cut?
I believe that at one point of time in career salary becomes secondary and self actualisation become more important. While taking up any new job, it will be my priority to ensure that the work culture, chances to contribute and grow are sufficient along with the money I am paid. I also believe that any good company who cares about its employees ensures that they are paid well.

Q15. Why do you consider yourself a suitable candidate for this position?
The answer to this question lies in the preparation you did before the interview. It is extremely important that you research the requirements of the position well and match them with your skills.
For e.g. if the position requires an Asp.net developer with good knowledge of health care domain, tell the interviewer about your technical skills and your domain knowledge.

Q16. What do you do to improve your knowledge?
The field of IT is very revolutionary. It is extremely important to keep yourself abreast with the new technological developments and this needs you to take some time out of your work schedule so that you can keep sharpening your saw.
To answer this question, you can tell the recruiter about the forums which you keep visiting, blogs which you keep reading. It will be an advantage if you are a member of some local user group.

Q17. Can you perform under pressure?
Most of the times, the job of software development is that of working under pressure. Sometimes, it will be the pressure of delivering on time while it can be that of a bug that has sprung all of a sudden in your code.So, expect pressure in everything you do. It is important to maintain your performance and develop strategies to deliver under pressure. You can then go ahead an talk about your way of dealing with pressure and performing under it.

Q18. How do you rate your communication skills?
Again, IT is about dealing with people within and out of the company. So, it is important to have good communication skills. By good communication skills we mean, ability to understand and explain in a common language. So, if you believe that your communication skills are weaker, you need to work on them. Anything less than average or good is not acceptable here.

Q19. Do you prefer working with others or alone?
Basically, the interviewer is asking if you are a team player. If your answer is with others, then the interviewer will think you can’t work alone and if you answer alone, then the interviewer may think you have some personality issues working with other people.
Your response needs to show that you can work well in a team atmosphere and still shoulder individual responsibility, as well. Before you answer, make sure you know if the job requires you to work alone or not.

“I enjoy working alone when necessary as I don’t need to be constantly reassured of my work. But I would prefer to work in a group as I believe much more work can be accomplished when everyone is pulling together.”

Q20. If you were hiring for this position, what qualities would you look for in a potential candidate?
Closely understand the qualities and skills a person holding the position would need and match them with the qualities you have. If you believe that you are missing a big quality required for the position under discussion, say that, I understand that this is an important quality required in the person holding this position but given a chance, I will inculcate it in me. Back it up with a confident body language.

Q21. Do you know anyone who works for us?
Offer some one’s name if they really know you well and can offer a positive feedback about you.

Q22. Have you ever fired anyone? How would you go about firing a person, if required?
The basic purpose of asking this question is to check your EQ and see if you have the guts to make tough decisions. If you have fired anyone in the past, discuss your experience and approach. If you have never done so in the past, discuss the approach you would take to make and implement such a decision. Keep the focus of your answer on the fact that you would try to do your best to ensure that your team performs to its best but if a particular member is not able to perform even after you taking all the steps to help him, you would make the tough decision to ensure that the project doesn’t suffer.

Q23. What irritates you about co-workers?
The purpose of this question is to see how well you can fit into a team. Basically, you should not have a problem with a person, although you can have a problem with the style of working.
So, to answer this question you can simply say, I understand that IT is about team work, so we cant afford to problems with co-workers but if someone is not serious about their work or does a low quality work affecting the whole project, I definitely do not like it”

Q24. Is there any particular kind of person you can not work with?
For the reason given in the above questions, the answer to this question should be a “No”. This is basically a different way of putting up the last question.

Q25. How do you get along with different types of people?
The workplace is loaded with a variety of different people with varying personalities and the interviewer wants to know how you think you will fit in.
When answering interview questions with HR, you want to show your interviewer that it does not matter what kind of people you work with – just that work gets done. This shows the interviewer that you are more concerned with outcomes than personalities.

Best answer: 1. “I work well with anyone who delivers what they promise.”
What are some of the things that you and your supervisor have disagreed about?
Though it may sound like it, this is not a time to bad mouth your supervisor. Let’s take what is expected to be a negative answer and turn it around.

 Q26. What qualities would you look for in your senior?
You can mention some generic qualities like intelligence, good sense of humour, dedicated to his team etc., which all the managers think that they have in abundance.

Q27. What motivates you at work?
To answer this question, you can mention things like new challenges, good environment which all employers think that they offer.

Q28. Will you be happy to work in night shifts or over the weekends?
You need to answer this question taking into consideration what is suitable for you. Say that you can work in the night shifts, only if you can really do it.

Q29. Would your boss describe you as a go-getter?
Share with the interviewer an example of a project that you worked on, perhaps you had to put in long hours and time on the weekend to meet a deadline and that in the end you completed the project or task on time and under budget and made your department or company look good.
“Yes; absolutely. It is not uncommon for my boss to tell me that I am one of the most reliable employees he has. He even makes such remarks on my evaluations. I believe he thinks so because I am dependable and I just get things done without having to be supervised and in the end it just makes him look good.”

Q30. Have you ever committed a mistake at work?
To err is human. So, it is perfectly OK if you committed a mistake at work but before answering the question analyse the magnitude of mistake you did and the effect it had on the company.

Q31. Why did you choose this particular career path or what led to your chosen profession?

When answering HR interview questions like this, you need to be specific and tell the interviewer what inspired you to take this career path while keeping your answer short and to the point. If you can, try to direct your answer so that it shows a logical progression between your profession and the company you are interviewing with.
You really want to convince the interviewer that you are the right person for the job and that your education, dreams, and career goals match your profession. Describe your thought process.
Don’t say that you majored in English because you thought it would be easy. Be specific and justify your answer. I chose .. because .. “I chose architecture because I have always admired beautiful buildings” or “As a child I was truly inspired by a certain TV show doctor which ultimately led me to pursue a career in medicine.”

Q32.What is more important is what did you do to rectify the mistake and make sure that you dont do it again?
So, mention the mistake you committed and keep the focus of the answer on the steps you took to rectify it.