There are several pages of questions. Because each position is unique, these questions may or may not suit your specific needs. You might begin sorting out the questions by choosing only categories pertinent to a particular job/position. You may need to adapt or rephrase the questions to the specifics of your position.

The questions are divided into the following categories:

• Previous Job Experience & Performance
• Expectations for This Job
• Management Attitudes
• Decision Making; Problem Solving; Analytical Skills
• Interpersonal Communication Skills; Dealing with Conflict
• Leadership Qualities
• Motivation & Goal Orientation
• Overall Job Performance
• Initiative, Creativity, and Innovation
• Ability to Learn
• Dependability & Flexibility
• Organization / Attention to Detail / Use of Time
• Cooperation
• Technical Skills
• Graphic Design / Desktop Publishing
• Web Design
• Using Technology to Communicate
• Organizational & Planning Skills
• Interpersonal Communication Skills; Dealing with Conflict
• Decision Making & Problem-Solving Abilities
• Management Attitude & Style
• General Knowledge of the Organization
• Administration
• Financial Management
• Evaluation Performance
• Employee Relations
• Planning & Goal Setting
• Organizational Relationships

Overall Job Performance

1. How do you typically handle yourself in a fast-paced environment?
2. How would you describe your work pace: fast, moderate, slow, or if it varies and under what circumstances?
3. What are your strengths? Why?
4. What are your weaknesses? Why?
5. How do you handle a heavy workload with many deadlines?
6. In all jobs there are heavy periods and light periods. What do you do in such cases?
7. You are given several rush projects to be completed in a short period of time. How would you establish priorities? Why?
8. How would you describe your organizational abilities?
9. How would you describe your attendance and punctuality habits?How would you describe your work habits?How would you describe your own performance standards?

Initiative/Creativity/Innovation

1. What ideas did you contribute to your department? What were the results?
2. Give an example of something you recommended that was adopted.
3. What have you done to make your job easier or more interesting?
4. Give an example of a project you were responsible for starting. What did you do? How did it work out?
5. How much information do you need to get started on a new project or
6. When have you had to produce results, without sufficient guidelines or information? What did you do?
7. What is the most creative thing you have done in a past job? How did it occur?
8. In the last year, what innovative ideas have you had at work? Were you able to implement them? How were they innovative?

Ability to Learn

1. Give an example of a situation at your previous employer when you have had to keep up with changes in technology, terminology, and information specific to your field?
2. How quickly have you learned new processes for a job? What did you have to learn?
3. How soon could you learn this job well enough to become productive?
4. If time did not permit a training period on a new job, how would you go about learning the things expected or required of you?
5. Give three examples of your adaptability.
6. Describe the most recent formal learning experience you’ve had.
7. What are your long-term professional goals? How do the duties and responsibilities in this position relate to that goal?
8. What do you consider to be important attributes of a supervisor?
9. What kind of supervisor do you enjoy working for most? Least?

Decision Making/Problem Solving/Analytical Skills

1. Describe a specific time on any job that you’ve held when you were faced with issues that tested your problem-solving skills. What did you do?
2. Give an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or not finish a task because you did not have enough information to come to a good decision. Be specific.
3. Give an example of a time when you had to make a quick decision.
4. Give an example of a time when you had to use your fact-finding skills to get information to solve a problem- then describe how you analyzed the information to come to a decision.
5. Give an example of a problem you faced on a job and describe how you solved it.
6. Describe your most stressful work-related situation and how you handled it.
7. How do you typically handle yourself under pressure or stress? Describe a difficult situation you encountered with a supervisor or co-worker and how you handled it.
8. What are some examples of important types of decisions or recommendations you are called upon to make in your past/present position?
9. Most of us can think of an important decision we’d make quite differently if we could do it over. Any examples from your experience?
10. Give an example of a difficult decision you had to make at your last job. How did you solve it? Follow-up: Why did you choose that method instead of another solution?
11. What has been a stubborn or recurring problem area you would have liked to solve in your cur-rent job, but haven’t yet?
12. What process do you follow in solving problems?
13. What methods do you use to make decisions? Please give an example of your approach.
14. What kinds of decisions did you have authority over? Which ones did you have to check with your manager before making?
15. What information or technical support has helped you succeed on the job?
16. Have you ever had to make a decision before you had all the data you wanted? Give an example. What did you do?

Interpersonal Communication Skills/Dealing with Conflict

1. What is effective communication?
2. Tell me about a job experience when you had to speak up in order to be sure that others knew what you thought or felt.
3. Describe how you would endeavor to convince your boss to grant you additional funds for a purpose you have-in-mind.
4. Describe some projects you worked on that required strong writing skills. What was the level of your responsibility? Who was the primary audience?
5. How would you characterize your written and oral communication-skills?
6. What do you require from a supervisor?
7. Would you rather work on a team or on your own?
8. Describe what a "team" environment means to you.
9. What experience have you had working as a member of a team? What are the advantages?

Technical Skills

Graphic Design/Desktop Publishing

1. What experience have you had with graphic design and desktop publishing? Please provide samples.
2. What are some basic principles of working with colors?
3. What sort of consideration goes into designing a brochure?
4. What do you look for in a blueline?
5. What information and materials would you provide to a service bureau if you had to produce a brochure?

Web Design

1. If money were not a concern, what platform would you choose for an Intemet information server, and why?
2. When creating Web documents, what tools do you use? What kind of experience do you have with HTML editors? Plain text editors? Web site management tools?
3. What does it mean for a program to be called a OGI? What is your experience with OGI programming?
4. What are the top 5 or 10 characteristics of a good Web site? Please illustrate by describing a good Web site that you recently produced. How did you plan and design the Web site? How do you decide when and how to revise or enhance a Web site?
5. What, in your opinion, are the basic characteristics of a bad Web site? How would you proceed if you were asked to re-design a less than adequate departmental Web site?
6. If you were given an assignment to put an existing print publication on the Web, how would you proceed? Why?
7. Have you ever connected Web forms to a backend database? Discuss your experience with such forms.
8. How do you stay current with developments in communications, graphic design, and Web publishing?

Communication

1. How would you define effective communication? What skills do you have that make you a good communicator?
2. How do you choose which medium/media to use to reach your various audiences? What are the strengths and weaknesses associated with each medium?
3. What are some of the strategies you have used to communicate technical information to a wide variety of people with differing levels of expertise?
4. How often in your professional experience have you encountered conflict between yourself and the subject of your story? Describe one such example.

Management Attitude/Style

1. How would you describe your management philosophy and style?
2. Have you ever had to initiate corrective action for an employee? If so, what steps did you take to implement this action?
3. In what ways might you want to modify your approach to dealing with subordinates?
4. Some managers keep a very close check on their organization. Others use a loose rein. What patterns do you follow? How has it changed during the last few years?
5. How would you describe your standards of performance? What would your staff say? What would your supervisor say?
6. How would you deal with an employee who was not doing his or her job properly?
7. What philosophy and techniques do you use in motivating your staff and energizing them?
8. How would you deal with an employee who does not appear to measure up to increasing demands of a job?
9. How do you think your staff would describe your delegation style?
10. How do you get your employees (or others) to follow you?
11. How do you use your power or authority to achieve your goals?
12. Give an example of how you delegated responsibility for a recent assignment; for instance, how you delegated an assignment, and
13. What you did to monitor it.

General Knowledge

1. Can you give us an overview of how an academic department functions in the University?
2. What is your commitment to and understanding of Affirmative Action as it relates to students, staff, faculty and recruitment? What about retention, staff development or promotion?
3. Describe the type of relationship you think should exist between staff and students on this campus.

Administration

1. How do you make sure that your employees are accountable?
2. What do you typically do when you hear of a problem in your area?
3. How useful have you found written procedures and guidelines in helping you manage your area?
4. Do you believe that the chain of command is important? Why? When do you think it might inhibit organizational effectiveness?

Financial Management

1. What responsibility do you have for budgeting? What budgeting method do you use?
2. How do you go about estimating expenses and budgets?
3. What recent decision have you made that had an impact on finances? How did you assess its impact?
4. What experience have you had with long and short-term budget projections? Please explain.