Interview Questons Template (Part 1)

Asking your candidates the right questions is very important.

The questions you ask them determine how much information you can uncover from them.

Here is a step by step "10 interview questions" template we use to hire quality boutique assistants. You can customize it appropriately for your own use.

The strategies and objectives behind each questions are well explained and carefully laid out for you. Enjoy :)


Q1.Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Please do not stop until a full minute. (1 minute)

Purpose of this question: i. To see if this person is able to communicate and connect with people, especially customers. ii. To see how confident and how well they present themselves, you MUST ASK them to go on if they stop before 1 full minute.

Q2.Why do you come to interview for this job, out of so many other jobs? (1 minute)

Purpose: You want to see if they have interest working in your place or just passing by.

Q3.i. “Please tell us why you leave your previous jobs.” (2minutes) (Looking at their forms and ask them one by one of their previous jobs)
ii. If they have no job experience, ask them if they have any experience working as part-time. (Leave it if they do not have any job experience at all)

Purpose: To find out if they have any hidden agendas why they left their previous jobs, and if they enjoyed their work.

Q4.“Please tell us about your experience working in Fashion Retail environment. What did you learn from there? You have 2 minutes.” (2 minutes) (If they have no experience working in fashion retail, ask them what they learnt from their other jobs)

Purpose: The idea here is to let them do the talking instead of you, so you can listen and find out:-
i. How much this person had learnt from his (her) previous job? (Note: Years of working ≠ amount of learning. You want someone who is a good learner so they can still grow.
ii. How capable is this person in handling his (her) jobs? (Note: If they can’t tell you much, simply means they were not putting in much effort into their works. Make sense?)

Q5.“Please tell us what you think are the main duties of working as a Boutique Assistant.” (1 minute)
(Don’t tell your answers, let them answer you first)

Purpose of this question: You want to know a few things about this person:-
i. Is this a person with good working attitude?
ii. Does this person understand his (her) job?
iii. Is this person willing to fight for sales?

* And most importantly, you want to open up their minds so later you can set up their expectations of what they are supposed to do if they are employed.


Ok, here is part 1 of the 10 questions interview system template. Look out for the sequel in the next post.