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Getting ready for your first one-on-one job interview? Here are common mistakes to avoid. Click to find out.
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More often than not, potential employees forget that a job interview is a two-way street where both participants need to assess each other.
As your potential manager (or hiring manager) assesses your suitability for a specific job description, you should also evaluate the manager’s leadership style, the company's future, professional development opportunities, communication skills, and decision-making abilities. In addition, find out how the job role, existing team, and company culture align with your career development.
This article will explore the best job interview questions for a hiring manager and how to obtain insights into a potential manager’s management style. We’ll also highlight questions not to ask during a job interview.
Let’s delve right into the interview process.
An essential part of the job interview process is to inquire about the management style of a potential employer. Different management styles have a distinct impact on your and other direct reports' work performance. Therefore, understanding the different styles is necessary to know which works best for you.
Here are steps to follow to inquire about management style in a job interview:
A productive job interview goes beyond asking good interview questions. The presentation and tone matter as well. Begin by patiently learning about the prevalent management approach in a team and its collective performance. This creates a cordial atmosphere for the ensuing questions to flow.
To get the most out of your job interview questions for managers, it’s important to ask open-ended and constructive questions to ensure detailed and informative responses from the hiring manager.
Consider asking the following questions:
Open-ended questions like these guarantee valuable insights and information from your potential employee.
During the job interview, you can ask a potential employer for specific real-life instances that exemplify their management style, including how they give negative feedback politely. Having hiring managers provide scenarios further reaffirms your understanding of their management style.
An example is to ask a few questions about their conflict resolution methods to understand thought processes and company culture. This provides a practical means of gauging their conflict resolution and leadership capabilities.
One of the key aspects of any management style is the communication strategy. How a potential employer communicates is crucial to consider before joining an organization so make sure to bring this up during a job interview.
You should learn about the communication protocols within a team and how the manager interacts with team members. Ask in a job interview about how feedback and performance evaluations work within the team, the frequency of team meetings, and employee resource groups.
Throughout an interview, ensure you are being polite and professional with the hiring manager. Whenever you ask an interviewer a question, express genuine curiosity about the job description and keep your questions' tone respectful. This not only demonstrates professionalism but also signals respect for the interviewer.
A smart interview question always conveys genuine interest. Plus, interviews often feel like one-on-one meetings that require preparations. The best hiring manager interview questions stem from the need to clarify certain relevant aspects of day-to-day responsibilities, the specific role, and the organization.
It’s good practice to come into an interview prepared with questions that help you properly evaluate the organization's company culture and your potential manager. According to Gallup, managers are responsible for approximately 70% of a team’s engagement.
Here are some of the best questions to ask in an interview;
This is an important question job candidates can ask during an interview because it provides you with a good perspective of the role you’re interviewing for. It also highlights its significance in an organization's overall structure and workflow, helping you understand how the different teams work synergistically in a typical day.
It also helps you picture how your job description contributes to realizing the company’s objectives.
The interview questions you have for a potential manager should include this. Inquiring about professional growth opportunities shows your commitment to growth, opportunities, and success within the organization. It helps you to assess the level of investment put in by the company to develop the skill set of employees.
Your professional development should always be a priority, and finding a company that understands this is an excellent step in the right direction in your career path.
This job interview question is a way of getting further information about the management style of a potential manager. It allows you to understand how teams operate and how efficiently they achieve their goals and the organization’s objectives.
The response will help you evaluate if your potential employer is committed to steering the team toward success, team work and boosting employee morale, how delegation within the team works, and if deadlines are met when due.
Collaboration and communication often drive productivity and company culture, and tools make the job easier. So, what better way to gauge productivity in a company than through their project management software, communication and collaboration tools?
The question also allows you to evaluate the team’s technology proficiency. Knowing the type of tools they use lets you determine how easily the company can adapt to the ever-changing workspace. It could also provide insights into their knowledge-sharing techniques and tools, such as their knowledge-sharing questionnaire questions.
This is one of the questions to ask at the end of an interview. It tests a potential employer's proactiveness and competitive drive, including the willingness to be ahead of industry competitors.
It also helps you gauge the level of strategic planning within the team and the proficiency of risk assessments for decision-making.
These job interview questions are ideal for a productive one-on-one meeting with your manager. Asking these questions allows you to be fully aware of your role and the key performance indices.
These questions include:
This is one of the most common interview questions. It tells you all you need to know about the daily responsibilities attached to your position.
It also helps you manage your time by knowing which tasks and skills to prioritize for better performance. Understanding how your responsibilities fit into the organization’s workflow also makes you liaise better with other team members.
Goals keep you committed. Ensure you ask and understand all your goals for your position, both short-term and long-term, to enable you to plan correctly. When fully aware of your goals, you can easily track and monitor your progress toward fulfilling them.
Productivity tools like Assembly do an excellent job of helping you evaluate your performance in your role. Try it Today.
If you don’t know the key determinants of success in a given role, you will either be doing what’s expected of you wrongly or not doing it all. So, part of the top interview questions to ask should include you seeking clarity on the assessment criteria for judging your performance in the given position.
A company’s culture determines many things, from decision-making to employee experience. It says a lot about every component of the workflow. So, if a company’s work culture doesn’t align with your workplace expectations, it could be hard to fit in and work effectively. Therefore, ask your boss about the core values promoted by the company to confirm if they align with your ethics and beliefs.
This is a unique interview question to ask. It makes for a good conversation and allows you to initiate a good working relationship with your boss by highlighting their roles in ensuring your work success. It also allows you to note the mistakes to avoid and reduce the common obstacles you may encounter in the role.
You’re not only mentally prepared for challenges but also ready to take proactive steps to avoid these problems. You also collaborate more effectively with other team members in tackling these setbacks.
Although we recommend asking as many relevant questions as possible, there’s a line. Various things, including the appropriateness, the value, and the timing, influence that line, and using meaningful icebreakers is a great way to begin when unsure or nervous.
However, there are some questions to steer clear of to avoid starting on a sour note with a potential manager. These questions include:
Avoid questions around overly personal topics to steer clear of discrimination; for instance, inquiry into religion can introduce religious sentiments into the conversation. Additionally, it ensures legal compliance and maintains professionalism during the interview.
This question is intrusive, unprofessional, and also irrelevant. The financial entitlements of a potential manager are independent of the responsibilities of your assigned role.
Just like questions about personal relationships, these questions are also not relevant. These questions tend to introduce biases based on age, gender, and ethnicity.
These questions leave a negative impression on your potential employer and paint a picture of your unwillingness to engage in teamwork. Likewise, it makes the interview session less productive because it shifts attention to actions that have taken place in the past. Instead, inquire how you can contribute to the team and the organization's success.
Questions like this just derail the focus of the interview. Avoid them to signal good work ethics and values. Moreover, they also come off as a breach of confidentiality.
This is counterproductive. Interviews are a critical part of a hiring process where you can obtain valuable insights into a company and leave a good impression on the interviewer. As such, asking about company details that are readily available in public space, for instance, a company website, makes you miss this golden opportunity. Additionally, such questions make you appear unprepared.
This also falls under privacy concerns. Some laws protect against discrimination on health grounds. Hence, asking about sensitive health issues can be perceived as being discriminatory.
It’s simply about avoiding political bias to not impair your judgment. Political bias may prevent you from seeing the bigger picture and identifying the growth opportunities existing in the company.
These types of interview questions are time-consuming and less efficient. Sometimes, they don’t capture the situation correctly and complicate things. This makes it difficult to obtain reliable and comprehensive information from your interviewer. A well-summarized scenario is much better to use.
Unnecessary jargon makes questions unclear, and responses obtained do little or nothing to bring clarity. Using jargon during an interview gives your potential employer the impression that you need better communication skills, which might impair your chances of being selected.
The need for interviewees to ask questions during job interviews can’t be overemphasized. It is the best way to satisfactorily assess the leadership capabilities of your potential manager and how well you fit into the company as a whole. In addition, it helps you understand team dynamics, role expectations, manager feedback culture, and the organization's values and goals.
The end goal of any hiring process is to ensure that only suitable candidates are considered for open positions. This is why interviews are conducted professionally, with both sides firmly reaffirming one another’s work preferences in an orderly and respectful manner, whether in person or virtually, using good interview questions.
Assembly is a top-rated HR tool that enables hiring managers to engage in effective bidirectional communication throughout the hiring process for better positive outcomes. Book a free Demo Today.
Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.
Explore Guide
Yes, at Assembly, security is a top priority. Each quarter, we have ongoing security work that is everyone’s responsibility. While we maintain a strong security posture, it was important for us to prove to our customers that we do everything we claim to do. This led us to pursue a SOC 2 Type II report that would provide evidence of our compliance with industry gold-standard security practice.
There is study after study showing that employee recognition leads to increased engagement. This in return creates an environment where employees are happier and more motivated which increase productivity and reduces voluntary turnover significantly. In order to filled critical roles, companies tend to spend nearly twice the value of an annual salary. Assembly is an investment in your employees that supports your bottom line.
Yes, we will offer contracts for companies with longer-term agreements to help larger customers have more certainty around future costs.
The minimum agreement term is a 12-month subscription.
We do and for FREE! Any new customer needing further support to get started with Assembly to ensure you're set up for success can request custom onboarding support. Improving your employee experience is about much more than just using our amazing software; it’s about transforming your business to create a workplace that people love. That’s much easier to do with the personal support and advice from our passionate people experts.
Yes. We offer a completely free plan for up to 50 team members. This plan is intended for teams or organizations that are looking to get started with an employee engagement tool. Keep in mind, this plan is limited in features.
All customers can open an Assembly account for free and get started without a credit card. Then you can change plans as necessary.
At the time of redemption (when your employees exchange their points for a paid reward) you'll pay face value. If a reward is a $10 Amazon gift card, your cost will be $10. All paid rewards are billed for on a monthly basis.
The good news is that you don't have to pay for rewards upfront because we only charge you when points are redeemed, not when they're earned.
We offer discounts or educational or charitable organizations. In order to secure a discount, you'll first need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
For all other organizations, we are willing to consider longer-term agreements in exchange for discounts. To set up annual plans or longer, you will need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a month to month plan, you can go here and cancel anytime. If you're having concerns or need help setting up your account for success, you can always book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a longer-term custom plan, you'll need to reach out to your customer support specialist to cancel your account or email us at support@joinassembly.com.
Great question! You can customize your core values to match your organization's to boost and track alignment. You can change your currency from the 🏆 emoji (our default) to any emoji of your choice. You can swap our logo for your own. You can also set up company culture rewards such as, "Lunch with the CEO," "Buy a book on us," and so much more!
While we recommend a peer to peer set up where anyone in your organization can give or receive recognition, you can set up Assembly however you want. If you need to limit the people who can give or receive recognition, that's perfectly fine and can be done from your Admin, here.
Assembly connects to the tools your employees use every day to offer an easy, seamless experience with minimal change management.
Assembly has integrations with HCM/HRIS systems like ADP, Google, Office 365, and Slack. We also integrate with communication tools like Slack and Teams so you and your employees can access Assembly wherever they work now.
That depends on the company's permissions set up. That said, over 90% of the employees on Assembly's platform are recognized on a monthly basis. That means nearly every employee across all of our customers are receiving regular recognition from their peers, managers, or leadership. We're extremely proud of this.
They are not required. You can use Assembly without having rewards set up. However, we don't recommend it if you intend to have a high adoption and usage rate. You can always keep the costs down by offering internal culture rewards that are fulfilled by you internally.
No, you can remove allowances from anyone or everyone. It's up to you but we do recommend using points whether they're worth a real dollar value or not. Companies that use points have a much higher engagement rate even if those points don't exchange for real dollars.
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