The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You

by Julie Zhuo

But if you’re looking for a starting point on what to ask, these are my favorite all-purpose questions: What kinds of challenges are interesting to you and why? Can you describe a favorite project? This tells me what a candidate is passionate about. What do you consider your greatest strengths? What would your peers agree are your areas of growth? This question gets both at a candidate’s self-awareness and what his actual strengths and weaknesses might be. Imagine yourself in three years. What do you hope will be different about you then compared to now? This lets me understand the candidate’s ambitions as well as how goal oriented and self-reflective she is. What was the hardest conflict you’ve had in the past year? How did it end, and what did you learn from the experience? This gives me a sense of how the candidate works with other people and how he approaches conflict. What’s something that’s inspired you in your work recently? This sheds light on what the candidate thinks is interesting or valuable.