Internal Interview Questions

There are a lot of ways to source candidates and fill job vacancies. You can recruit externally or, for a faster and more cost-efficient way, work with recruitment agencies (i.e. JB Hired). However, did you know that you can also hire internally?

Yes. The best fit might just be hiding in plain sight. You might not realize it, but the individual who can successfully deliver the role is already your employee all along.

It makes perfect sense. You have been grooming and training your employees in their field. Plus, they already know how the company works. It’s only a matter of time before they advance in their career as one of your trusted management.

In case you’re planning to recruit internally, take note that the process will be different-- much faster-- and the interview questions will be different as opposed to external hiring.

In this article, we’ll talk about what internal interviewing entails and we’ll provide you with a template for a smooth-sailing process.

What is internal interviewing?

Internal interviewing is the act of asking relevant questions to an employee from an existing workforce. It’s very different from external recruitment because the process is much faster and the questions are more geared towards personal experiences and a sense of progress in the company.

It talks about more of the employee’s views towards the company and how they can move forward given what they know, what skills they honed, and what more they can offer to the organization.

Internal recruiting nowadays is done because it can save time and reduce costs as compared to hiring externally.

What are the benefits of internal recruitment?

To elaborate more on that, here are some of the prominent benefits that internal recruitment brings:

Faster recruitment process

Ultimately, you would be able to hire faster because you don’t need to play the scavenger hunt game. You don’t need to go to various platforms just to post job ads and get applicants. By recruiting internally, you have fewer candidates to screen and you already have all the details that you need (i.e. CVs, portfolio, etc.).

Little to no training is needed

With someone from an existing workforce, they already know how the company works. This means no onboarding training is needed, which can save a lot of time and money for the organization. If there are new things that need to be learned, it will be minimal and more on the technical side.

Increases employee satisfaction

For the employee, this is an act of promotion. And when they get promoted, their level of satisfaction and sense of purpose will increase. This is because they would feel that they matter more in the organization. By taking on bigger tasks and more responsibility, they would be an essential part of the team’s success. This morale boost will enable the employee to be more passionate about work and, therefore, work better and longer for the company.

Reduce job posting and screening costs

Since you recruit internally, there is no need to take the effort in posting job ads and screening unqualified candidates. This gets rids of extra costs in several ways. There would be no need to boost job ads for visibility, hire a recruiter agency, use additional tools, and more.

Internal interview questions

With that in mind, let’s take a look at this template for the best internal interview questions to ask your employee:

General

• How is it working for the company so far?
• What do you like and dislike about it?
• Work Experience
• What are the projects that you worked on in your current role? Who was involved in it and how did you assign tasks to the team and allocated resources?
• What was the project that you were most proud of? Why and how did it go?
• What was the most challenging?
• We heard that you managed to (mention an accomplishment or failure), elaborate on how that happened.
• Why do you want to work in this new role?
• What experience do you have would make you the perfect candidate for this role?
• What kind of challenges do you think you would encounter in this new job? How will you overcome them?

Team Assessment

• Please describe the ideal team dynamic.
• Have you worked with other departments? If yes, which department have you worked with the most? How was it?
• Describe a time when you displayed smooth and clear communication with other people or other departments.
• Have you encountered any problems with communication and collaboration? If yes, what did you do about it?

Behavior

• What would make a great leader?
• How would you rate your leadership skills? Which instance made you say so?
• How do you think others would rate your leadership skills?
• How would you describe your leadership style? How would this affect your new role?
• How would you handle your team if you get hired for this new role? What would the collaboration and communication system look like?

Motivation

• Which areas do you think you could have done better?
• What do you like and dislike about your current role?
• What would make you want to stay in your current role?
• At this point in your career path, where do you see yourself in the next 3 years?

Additional Tips for Internal Recruiting

1. Before you interview a candidate, make sure that you do your research about them first. Talk to their immediate supervisor and ask what details such as strengths and weaknesses, accomplishments and failures, and more. Get valuable feedback from them.
2. Tailor your questions based on this feedback. This way, you have concrete data to back up your questions to get to know how they can fit the new role.
3. Prepare the questions ahead of time, so you can inform the aspiring candidate if they need to get feedback from their colleagues and direct manager. Since you’ll be asking things like “how do others view your leadership style, leadership skills, etc.”, this will be helpful.
4. After the interview, evaluate properly if they will be a good fit for the job. Just because they worked for the company, doesn’t mean that they are “the one”. Collaborate with your team and decide if you’ll move forward or if you have to resort to external recruiting.

Need an email template to move forward your next steps? Whether it’s an acceptance email, rejection email, or more, you can find them here!

Learn more about Manatal here, or start your 14-day free trial here (no credit card required).