Interview questions
People & Culture interview questions
Advice for your career stageThe five questions
Usually asked for roles that manage people
How do you build and develop high-performing teams?
Tell me about a difficult conversation you had with a direct report.
How do you handle underperformers?
How do you make sure your hiring process is fair and reaches a wide pool of candidates?
Tell me about a time you had to let someone go.
How to approach People & Culture questions at your career stage
Years of full-time work, in any field.
If you have had time away from work, "recent" in this advice means your most recent role. Name the gap in one sentence and move on to the work.
Emerging
0 to 2 years
If you have not managed anyone yet, say so. Draw from a group conflict you helped settle or a teammate you helped get unstuck, then explain how you would approach the manager version. "I have not done that yet, here is how I would start" earns more respect than a stretched story.
Established
3 to 7 years
You may manage a small team, or none yet. Answer from whichever is true. Pick one time you held a standard with someone: a report, a peer, a contractor. Say what you asked for, how the conversation went, and what changed afterward. Hold one question for the end: what is the hardest people problem on this team right now?
Seasoned
8 or more years
Do not catalog everyone you have developed. Pick one recent person and walk through one conversation: what you said, how they took it, and what changed. Then listen closely to the follow-ups. They may hint at the people problem this role inherits.
Executive
You run or have run a function or business
No names in the hard stories. Describe the standard you held and the call you made. Answer as if your former reports are in the room.
For every career stage
On the question about fair hiring, walk through the steps you actually run: where you look for candidates, how you keep the questions and scoring the same for everyone, and, if a pool has come back narrower than the role needed, what you changed. If you have not hired yet, say so and describe the steps you would run.
Free account, 2 practice sessions a month. Paste a job description and the panel builds its questions from it, so they may differ from this list.