11 Important Interview Questions for Employees’ Test, Assessment, and Evaluation

With only 16% of companies investing in continuous learning or adaptability for their workers, according to McKinsey & Company, the same number are likely interested in tracking how well people currently work, so that they can assess skills gaps.

As struggles to hire talent can often be brutal and a single wrong hire can decimate a company’s finances, getting it right is imperative. So, what are some interview questions for employees’ test, assessment, and evaluation so that you can ensure you bring in the right person?

Below, we offer eleven of the most important questions you might want to ask, as well as several ways you might draw insights from their answers, related to issues like:

• Office technical skills
• Soft skills
• DISC assessment
• Mechanical aptitude

With these questions, you can ensure that you evaluate every person correctly and grow your business with the best people on board.

Over 90% of office jobs in the United States now require at least one digital skill, according to the National Skills Coalition, and the demand for these skills continues to grow. As such, ensure that you have a strong understanding of the capabilities of every person who applies. Not only that, but you will need to map the proficiency of your candidates to the exact suite of software that your team uses daily to minimize onboarding.

If necessary, also assess how well applicants learn new packages or software features, which will indicate how quickly they can get up to speed if they have used older versions or when new updates appear.

As 70% of the companies in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 stated that they believe analytical thinking is a primary skill their team should have, it stands to reason that you need to test for it.

To do this, ask applicants about either:

• Real scenarios your team has faced
• Public issues related to your industry that people may have opinions on
• Potential risks to your business

You can then see how applicants engage in root-cause analysis and whether they balance both data and gut feeling when the stakes are theoretical or ambiguous. Compare what they say with any data you have gathered about them, and you should have a good sense of both their self-assessment and their actual capabilities.

Having genuine curiosity about your core business can ensure that people remain engaged for longer, with 71% of employers stating that this makes an employee more prepared for the future of the role, according to TalentLMS. It will also mean that many people will perform training outside of the office, helping them develop new skills to succeed in their roles.

Understand that if people display a willingness to be curious, this is something that you can often encourage once someone is in the role, too, giving them a real push to succeed and develop more complex thinking, which drives innovation.

It is vital that you test the ethical judgment of every employee, especially if you work in an organization where you may handle data related to the public. As 23% of U.S. workers have personally witnessed unethical behavior in the past year, according to Gallup, there is a good chance that it could happen in your company too.

Evaluate their consistency between:

• Their personal values
• Brand trust
• Corporate codes of conduct
• Regulatory compliance

An overlap in all of these areas means that the individual has a stronger capability in leading their team effectively.

The DiSC system of categorization defines people differently based on their behavioral profile. While you may need to provide the applicant with a primer on what the system is, their ability to demonstrate an understanding of how it applies to them proves that they have a level of self-awareness in how they communicate.

With a good understanding of this, they can often be more prepared to leverage the strengths inherent in each one and mitigate their key blind spots. If a person can then demonstrate how this applies to them, you can likely assume that they will strive to grow in a leadership role.

Even if someone isn’t applying for a mechanical role, mechanical reasoning proves an aptitude in critical thinking beyond the résumé. It shows that people can use troubleshooting methodology and logic in response to things like:

• System failures
• Equipment issues
• Resource management
• Safety assessments

It also helps when working out if someone is good at mitigating or assessing risks, both in their role and that of those around them.

If a person has already led a team through significant changes in the past, it shows that they are likely ready to do so again in the future. Focusing on not only leading a team, but also on one in a position undergoing a transition shows that they have capabilities related to:

• Assessing complex situations
• Forecasting decisions they may need to make
• Empathy with employee uncertainty
• Maintaining professional communication styles during disruption

Ask them to give you key examples of challenges during this period and how they overcame them for the betterment of their team or the company.

If you want to take this one step further, provide them with a specific example of an industry shake-up and a company overhaul you are intimately familiar with. Ask them how they would start planning a roadmap to navigate a challenging period, and observe how they prioritize both quick wins to stay afloat and long-term changes to ensure viability.

Check to see what methods they use, whether they be SWOT analysis or other scenario-planning tools. Then, compare their strategy with situations that have already occurred in your industry to see how they scale up. You should also keep an eye on how well their methods align with your company values, as you want to avoid hiring someone who takes more extreme action when the going gets tough.

When speaking with the assessed individual, try to determine whether they are a good cultural fit for your business. Employee evaluation techniques that assess culture can ensure that people are a fit both technically and socially, making it much more likely that you can retain them long-term.

Use the data that you are provided by any testing while assessing talent to give yourself not only their qualitative answer but also quantifiable truths about their working habits.

One of the most challenging assessment steps is using the right interviewing strategies to determine if someone can effectively utilize emotional intelligence, as it often appears differently for many people. However, good emotional intelligence usually correlates with leadership success, as it enables building better rapport and supporting a team, as well as resolving conflict, especially in remote work settings.

If your hiring assessment tools can measure this key skill, then make sure it is a priority in learning whether someone has the qualities of a leader.

During the candidate evaluation, you should learn whether someone has already experienced a significant difficulty in your industry and how they pressed through it. Success in this area strongly suggests that someone either possesses a talent for resilience and understands what needs to be done or has learned it.

If they have instead “ducked and run” every time a problem has arisen in their workplace, you will need to consider whether you want them around long-term, especially if your industry is prone to volatility. Alternatively, you may need to use alternate encouragement to get them to stay.

Working with someone who has used 360 feedback in the past to drive specific skill building displays that they have a growth mindset and are potentially coachable. While you may not always want to be growing their capability from day one, as you may have other priorities in the short term, it does show that you can encourage their rise in the industry. It can even potentially help you plan for any succession if an employee higher than them is no longer able to continue their role.

Make sure not only to ask if they have engaged in 360 feedback, but also ask for specific examples of feedback from all angles and how they specifically implemented it to give you a good idea of their methods here, too.

Strong applicant assessments mean that you need the best interview questions for employees’ test, assessment, and evaluation. The above are some of the key ways you can learn someone’s capabilities, but their personal feedback will only give you so much. Having a data-driven assessment method can also give you assurances you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Success Performance Solutions has been in business for almost 30 years and can provide you with the data you need to assess both your past and current teams. Contact us to learn how we achieve a 90% retention rate with our clients today.