When we are looking for a new team player, we want to hire someone who will become a natural extension of our team. We want to find a person with excellent hard skills, an impressive portfolio, and great interpersonal skills. And it’s extremely important that this person will be aligned with the culture of our organization.

It’s relatively easy to evaluate the hard skills, but it can be tricky to assess cultural fit. The questions listed below will help you with that. These questions uncover the basis of someone’s thinking model and values so that you will be able to get to know them beyond their professional capabilities. You will be able to evaluate a candidate’s personality, temper, motivators & demotivators, and curiosity.

Before we dive into actual questions, it’s vital to mention a few critical things:

• Don’t treat this list as a questionnaire you share with candidates and expect them to answer every single question. It’s always essential to make interviews conversational — it should be an open dialog, and the questions you ask should be selected based on the interview direction.
• None of these questions are disqualifiers. The beauty of the questions listed below is that there are no right or wrong answers to them. The questions will help you understand the kind of person you would be getting to work with.
• Some questions are very personal, and some candidates might feel uncomfortable answering them. It is worth reminding the candidate that they are not forced to answer questions if they feel uncomfortable.

If you’re looking for a job in the design field, check UX Job Search Guidebook. It is a practical tool for creating UX job applications, your first portfolio and resume, improving your LinkedIn profile, writing cover letters, and preparing yourself for a job interview.

Personality

What are the riskiest things you did in your life?

Alternatively, you can ask, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve done in your life?” or “What’s the biggest risk you have taken throughout your career?” It will help you understand whether the person is willing to take risks and to what degree.

When was the last time you lost patience at work? Why did it happen?

Design can be very stressful, especially when you have to handle tight deadlines or work under high pressure. Stress resistance is an excellent ability that allows UX professionals to work with various types of people. The answer will help you understand how often a candidate faces stressful situations and how well they can handle them.

What’s a common misconception people have when first meeting you?

Science says we form an initial impression about someone in just a few seconds. Quite interestingly, our impression of a person might change drastically once we know a person better. But knowing how different people perceive you and what biases they have about your personality is important because you can mitigate some negative impressions about yourself.

When was the last time you faced self-doubt?

Imposter syndrome is very common among designers, especially among people who recently moved to the design field. Self-doubt can be a good and bad thing — it can motivate you to invest more time in mastering your design skills, but it could also make you reluctant to show your work to other people (simply because you are too afraid to face criticism). That’s why knowing how often a candidate experience self-doubt will help you understand how open this person can be with other team members.

When we call your references, what will they tell us about you?

Knowing what people you work with can say about you is pretty vital. It is one of the factors that can be used to measure your self-awareness.

Rate the value you brought to the last place you work at (from 0 to 10)

This question can help you understand whether you’re interviewing a humble person or not. A humble person rarely gives you 10. Once you hear the rate, you ask a follow-up question, “Why do you think so?” to understand the rationale.

What was your most significant contribution to your last company?

This question allows a candidate to show off their work and explain relationships with team members. Track how often a candidate says “I” vs. “we.” The overuse of “I” can be a red flag since the design is a team sport most of the time.

What would your best friend | worst enemy will say about you?

Alternatively, you can ask, “What are 5 words your close friend would use to describe you?” It is another good question to ask when you want to evaluate self-awareness.

Your colleague disagrees with you about a particular design decision. How would you deal with this situation?

Alternatively, you can ask, “If you and I were to disagree on something, how would we go about resolving it?” This question will help you understand whether a person has good negotiating skills and what techniques they use to convince other people.

What is your superpower?

It is another question that will help you to evaluate a candidate’s self-awareness. Once a candidate names the superpower, you can ask a follow-up question, “Why do you think this is a superpower?” to learn more about how they use this skill in design.

What’s been the most embarrassing moment of your career?

This is a great question to evaluate humility. You want to hire people who aren’t afraid of mistakes they made in the past and can openly talk about things that didn’t work well.

What’s one thing we haven’t talked about that you want me to know?

Alternatively, you can ask, “What’s one thing we haven’t talked about that you want me to know?” It is a great question to learn more about a candidate. Most of the time, people will tell you things that they think are important to them.

Are you lucky?

The answer to this question will tell you a lot about the person’s perception of her/his own success.

Motivators and demotivators

Why do you want this job?

This question is a goldmine for learning about factors that motivate candidates. Of course, you will get the most valuable information when a candidate is telling you the true reason why they want a job. So it is vital to remove money from the equation. To shift the focus from money, you can ask, “Why do you want this job? Tell me reasons to apply to this position, apart from the compensation you receive working here.”

What would you do if you knew nobody would judge you?

Society has a massive impact on our actions. But not always do the paths people choose to follow align with their goals and motivations. This question will help you learn more about the things that are truly important to a candidate.

Describe your ideal role

Try to ask this question at the beginning of the interview session before giving a candidate specific role requirements, and you will find out what they’d be excited to work on and weigh that against your opportunity.

What types of work or projects give you energy?

This question will help you understand the things that a candidate enjoys doing the most.

Do you set yourself goals? What are your goals right now? How often do you review and revisit these?

Goals will help you narrow down your focus and manage your time more effectively. When you know what goals a candidate has, you might be able to understand whether the direction that the candidate is headed to is aligned with the career opportunity you offer.

What’s the most influential book you’ve ever read?

You will likely hear the things that motivate a candidate and what people (real people or fictional characters) the candidate treats with respect.

What’s the hardest thing about UX job?

Alternatively, you can ask, “What type of task or project you don’t enjoy working on and why?” It’s a great question to learn what a candidate likes and dislikes about product design. It also will help you reveal the trauma(s) that a candidate might have from their previous jobs.

Imagine you own a company. What are the 3 things you would find most important?

It will help you evaluate the business maturity of a candidate. Experienced candidates will likely give you specific things they seek in companies.

How much money do you expect to earn when you start working here? And how much money do you expect to earn in 3 years?

This question will help you understand the expected salary and how ambitious a candidate is.

What are the characteristics of the best boss you’ve ever had?

This is an excellent way to see what kind of leader or management style a candidate responds well to.

What is more important to you — a company name or a project you join?

This will tell you whether a candidate is looking for an impressive record for their CV or a cool project. Seasoned experience professionals will likely tell you that they want to have both.

What did you do to prepare for this interview?

Alternatively, you can ask, “If you were to tell a friend about our company, how would you describe what we do?” Research is a key part of the design process. How well UX practitioners can perform research has a direct impact on the project’s outcome. When you ask this question, you expect to hear how a person collects and analyses information about a company and role from various sources, and the answer will help you predict how good a person can be at research.

What would make you leave if you joined?

You can be more specific and ask, “If you joined us and in a few months you decide to leave, why would that be?” This will help you identify significant demotivators that can impact candidates’ decisions to leave a company.

Tell me about one of the projects that you are most passionate about

This is another way to ask what you like and dislike to do, but also learn about how a person interacts with teammates. A project is more than a set of tasks you complete; it’s a process of co-creation of something new, and interaction with teammates takes a central stage in this process. So you can ask several follow-up questions about the candidate’s involvement & contribution.

What do you believe you’re best at in design?

This question is good for evaluating self-awareness in the context of a particular activity. When you hear something like “I’m good at visual design,” you can ask a follow-up question to learn why a person thinks so.

What do you never want to do again?

This question will help you quickly identify the type of work a candidate will avoid doing.

What is your dream job?

This question will shed light on a candidate’s career path. It will be much easier to evaluate whether a position you’re hiring a person for matches their expectations.

Temper

Are you a planner or spontaneous?

The candidate will likely give you a few examples of how they approach design problems, and you should ask follow-up questions to understand why they behave in a specific way.

Where do you draw the most energy from?

This question will help you understand whether you’re interviewing an introvert or an extrovert. Someone telling you that they draw the most energy from books and movies will likely be an introvert, while someone telling you about meeting with people will likely be an extrovert.

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Alternatively, you can ask, “What time do you generally get up every day?” or “Walk me through a day in your life.” This question will help you understand the part of the day that the person is the most productive at. Generally, early birds are more productive during the first part of the day, while night owls are best in the second part of the day.

How do you handle an apology?

Conflict happens no matter how much we want to avoid them. But how people show up in these critical moments directly impacts relationships inside the team. Interpersonal relationships inside a team are one of the most critical factors that influence the outcome team produces. That’s why you want to have a team of grown-up people who can solve conflicts effectively, acknowledge problems, and handle an apology if they weren’t right.

Do you usually strive for speed or perfection?

This question will help you understand how a candidate prefers to work. Some people want to create a solution as fast as possible and then polish it later, while others try to perfect a solution before showing it to teammates.

What tips would you give your future manager to work best with you?

This question will help you understand what style of management works best for this candidate.

Curiosity

Good UX designers are perpetual learners. They always want to improve themselves.

What are top 3 things you have learned about people?

Design is about solving problems that people experience. To become a great designer, you need to be curious about people. This question will help you understand how well a candidate knows people.

What do you plan to learn next?

You can ask a follow-up question “How this job will help you do that?”

What do you like to do most when you’re not working?

Hobbies and activities that a candidate does in their free time can tell a lot about the person. This question is essential to ask when you hire someone to work remotely.

What are the open tabs on your browser right now?

A good question is to learn what online resources a person visits regularly.

What technologies | trends excite you most right now? Why?

You will learn what technologies/trends a person finds promising. What is more important to hear is why they think so.

Tell me about the latest things you have learned. It could be a new technology, trend, or design approaches

You can ask a candidate to provide an overview of the last article or book they read. You will also learn how well a candidate can communicate information.

How do you keep up with what is happening in the industry?

This question will help you learn if a candidate is passionate about learning new things and what resources they use. To make the question more specific, you can ask a candidate to share the top 3 latest things they have learned.

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