HR Generalist Interview Questions
About the role
HR Generalists run the daily functions of an organisation's HR department - including hiring, interviewing staff, administering pay and leave, and enforcing company policies and practices. Where HR Managers tend to be more responsible for planning and strategy, HR Generalists are often in charge of managing day-to-day duties like monitoring staff turnover and logistics.
HR generalist responsibilities
- Overseeing office and team logistics
- Making sure the office environment is fit for purpose (including keeping it stocked and procuring equipment)
- Liaising with bookkeepers on expenses and invoicing
- Working on travel and event coordination
- Taking the lead on developing and drafting company policies and procedures in areas from HR to legal
- Tracking and managing key compliance and governance processes
- Gathering and analysing data with useful HR metrics, like time to hire and employee turnover rates
What skills should you be looking for?
We receive an email in our careers inbox from an applicant who is interested in applying for one of our job openings. Unfortunately, applications for the role had just closed and they were unable to submit their application in time. They ask you if they can still submit their application as they are really interested in the role.
How would you go about responding to the applicant? What would your recommendation be?
You have been balancing a busy workload and receive an email from a hiring manager, explaining that they are unhappy it has taken too long to issue a contract to a new starter. How would you respond to them?
A new employee is joining the team and you have contacted their referee for an employment reference. The referee has not responded to you and over a week has passed. Please outline the steps you would take in order to resolve this issue.
It’s been a busy week and it’s now late on Friday. You have five things that you’ve yet to get to this week...
- A colleague has emailed the inbox this morning saying they are struggling with their mental health and wanted to know where the sickness policy is.
- There is an email from the line manager of a new starter asking you to arrange an HR induction with their new member of staff, this has been in the inbox since Wednesday
- This morning, your line manager has chased you for a salary increase letter for one of the Senior Directors to take effect from Monday. They originally asked you about this yesterday.
- A manager has emailed you to let you know that their member of staff has not passed their probation, and they have the meeting at the end of the day to deliver the news. They've asked for you what HR support is available.
- You need to put the finishing touches to a policy you are working on. You have promised the team it will be ready for your catch-up on Monday morning.
Imagine you only have time to do two of these tasks, which two do you choose and why? Explain your rationale and what actions you would take to minimise the consequences of leaving the other tasks incomplete.
A line manager has approached you for advice on one of their direct reports who they have said is underperforming after only 5 months in the role. The line manager says that this person often join calls late and doesn’t contribute equally to project deliverables and that this is affecting team morale. What questions would you ask the line manager to develop a full picture and what aspects do you think are most relevant to consider?
What are structured interview questions?
Structured questions (or work samples) are highly predictive, job-specific questions designed to simulate parts of a job.
Structured work sample questions are the most predictive form of assessment you can use. Why? Because they directly test for skills by asking candidates to think as if they were already in the job.
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Diversity
Testing for skills instead of just experience makes interviews a more inclusive process. 60%+ of candidates hired through our process would've been missed using CVs/traditional interviews - most of whom are from underrepresented groups.
Accuracy
By simulating tasks that would realistically occur in the role, you can see how candidates would think and work should they get the job.What could be more predictive than having candidates do small parts of the job before actually getting it?
Candidate experience
Candidates genuinely enjoy being given a chance to showcase their ability - this is why we have a 9/10 average candidate experience rating (including unsuccessful candidates).
Decide on the skills you’re looking for
Choose 6-8 core skills required for success in the role. These can be a mix of hard, technical skills as well as soft skills and general working characteristics.You could also include one or two of your organisation's most relevant values.
Think of scenarios that would test these skills
Next, come up with either everyday tasks or rarer, more challenging scenarios that would test some of these skills. They can be day-to-day duties, bigger projects or specific dilemmas that a candidate may realistically face. Should they get the job.
Pose scenarios hypothetically to create your questions
Instead of your typical ‘tell me a time when’ questions, ask candidates what they would do if faced with a given scenario.It's not that experience doesn't have any value… it's just more predictive to test directly for skills, without making assumptions based on background.
Give yourself scoring criteria
Want to make more data-driven hiring decisions? Score candidates against set criteria.We’d recommend starting out with a simple 1-5 star scale and a few bullet points noting what a good, mediocre and bad answer might include.
Use review panels
Having team members join your interviews will result in fairer, more accurate scores.Three is the magic number - you’ll start seeing diminishing return after that