Conducting fair external interviews is challenging, but internal interviews could be even trickier. While familiarity speeds up the hiring process, it could also introduce bias, so you need the right internal interview questions for accurate assessment. Without well-structured interviews, you’re unlikely to uncover employees’ potential or match them to the right roles, leading to disgruntled employees and poor internal mobility.
A strong internal recruitment process demands careful preparation and evaluation to predict success in a new role. To help, we’ve compiled 15 top internal interview questions for fast, insightful assessments, along with tips on preparing for them and evaluating responses.
Why do internal interviews matter in hiring?
Internal interviews are a key aspect of internal recruiting, enabling hiring managers to build a stronger team from within quickly. Below, we’ll see why internal interviews matter and how they improve the hiring process when done right.
1. Faster, cost-effective hiring
Hiring fresh employees can be quite expensive for most organizations, costing as much as $4700 per employee, according to a 2022 SHRM report. Internal interviews save time and money spent interviewing and reviewing a large number of external candidates for both organizational and job fit.
Instead, they streamline your focus to select candidates who strongly understand the company’s operations and have a healthy idea of the role’s requirements from the onset.
2. Employee retention and upskilling
A 2023 edX survey found that 80% of professionals were more likely to stay with their company long-term if it offered better training and development. Similarly, a 2021 LinkedIn report stated that employees at organizations with internal mobility stay twice as long.
These numbers show that employees who recognize your organization’s commitment to their growth are motivated to remain with your company rather than seek external opportunities. Internal interviews demonstrate this commitment by offering them a chance to expand their skills in new roles, thus increasing employee retention.
3. Better organizational fit
External candidates who understand your organization’s dynamics, culture, and values could be hard to find, especially in the early interview stages. On the other hand, internal interview candidates who have worked in your company are already familiar with the work environment and goals. This enhances culture fit, making it easier to adjust to the new job within a shorter transition period.
4. Seamless team integration
Internal interviews select candidates who are familiar with the company’s operations and can contribute to the team easily. With a strong knowledge of how their team works, employees can carry out their responsibilities, hit targets, and collaborate better. This increases teamwork, reduces conflicts, and fosters team unity.
5. Easily-accessible performance history
Unlike external interviews, which involve resume verification with other companies, internal interviews allow you direct access to employees’ performance history. This way, you can see their track record in the organization, identify their strengths, and note their weak areas.
Besides correctly evaluating the employee, this knowledge also helps you prepare for their interview, providing context about their background and abilities.
How to identify credible candidates for internal hiring
Internal mobility fills positions faster, but like external hiring, it still depends on the quality of your internal candidates. Here, we’ll look at four crucial steps that can help you identify top candidates for internal hiring.
1. Evaluate candidates’ performance metrics and job records
First, evaluate the performance history of employees who indicated interest in the position. Analyzing their results and impact in both their current and previous roles shows you their level of dedication and potential for growth. With this information, you can objectively determine their job fit and select employees who will add value if transferred either vertically or horizontally.
2. Discuss their career aspirations
Engage with high-performing employees to learn about their career aspirations and the skills they’re eager to develop. This dialogue helps you align their growth with the company’s goals, ensuring the role suits their ambitions and guiding them accordingly. Employees who see how the new role advances their career and prepare adequately are far more likely to be engaged and excel than those without a clear connection to their goals.
3. Analyze their job-relevant skills using assessments
At this stage, conduct skill assessments to evaluate their competence and skill level. Despite having their performance history, you want to assess their abilities for the job in question and make decisions based on this data rather than assumptions. This prevents mishires and ensures there’s no bias throughout the process. But first, you must employ a good assessment software, like Vervoe, for the job.
Specifically designed for this purpose, Vervoe is equipped with top assessment features for a range of jobs and skills. Whether you’re testing technical skills like coding, project management, and business analysis or soft skills like leadership ability, communication, and problem-solving, our assessment library offers multiple options, with over 300 templates and 300,000 questions.
For even greater versatility and flexibility, Vervoe’s tests come in several formats, including multiple-choice, video, presentations, and Excel sheets. We even have immersive job simulations that let employees demonstrate their abilities in realistic job scenarios.
In addition, you don’t have to worry about accuracy and fairness because Vervoe’s AI-powered automation feature handles this adeptly. Our software instantly grades and ranks each employee’s response according to your criteria, eliminating bias and improving transparency. Vervoe also provides anti-cheating features to ensure your results are completely foolproof, reducing mishires.
4. Conduct structured interviews
At this stage, you’ve streamlined your talent pool and can focus on a smaller group of employees. Conduct structured internal interviews to assess their job readiness further and ensure they understand the job’s nature and requirements. Additionally, these interviews give you an opportunity to see their behavioral tendencies and communication styles, both important factors in job success.
How to prepare for an internal interview
Preparing for internal interviews follows a similar process to external ones but requires additional steps to ensure a more comprehensive evaluation. Below, we’ll outline the key steps to help you conduct effective and insightful internal interviews.
1. Clearly define the job’s requirements and responsibilities
Before collecting applications, define the job’s nature and requirements clearly. Knowing the responsibilities and results an employee in that position should have gives you an idea of the necessary skill set internal candidates need to thrive in the role. Without this clarity, you risk vague expectations about the job, increasing the likelihood of hiring mismatches and costly mistakes.
2. Determine your ideal candidate and their skillset
When you’ve spelled out the job’s requirements and day-to-day activities, identify the qualities and skills an employee in that role should have. These should include technical and soft skills, and you must be clear about how these skills help the employee achieve results in the role. This way, you know exactly what to look for, setting the stage for faster, cost-effective internal recruitment.
3. Review candidates’ performance history and career goals
Before inviting employees to interview, review their background in the organization, particularly their skillset, achievements, and how they handled previous challenges. With a healthy understanding of their current abilities, you can see where they have room to grow, which aids you in closing skill gaps faster. Also, take note of any stated career goals and interests, as this informs you whether the position fits within their desired trajectory.
4. Tailor interview questions to assess job-relevant skills and candidates’ previous experience
Next, prepare your internal interview questions, taking care to align them with the job’s responsibilities and requirements. Questions should inquire about how the employees have applied their skills in previous roles and how their knowledge has prepared them for the open job. Having insightful questions prepared beforehand guides you during the interview, helps you stay on track, and prevents hiring bias from affecting the process.
15 top internal interview questions to hire correctly
How should you structure your questions to prompt the right responses and conduct better internal interviews? In this section, we’ve provided a comprehensive list of the best 15 internal interview questions to guide you.
1. Describe your responsibilities and most significant accomplishments in your current position.
2. How would you describe the responsibilities in this open position, especially compared to your current ones?
3. Why do you want this role, and how does it fit your career goals?
4. What skills have you acquired in your journey in this organization, and how would you use them in this new role?
5. Share an example of a problem you’ve solved in your current role.
6. Describe your current relationships with your colleagues.
7. How do you make and vet your decisions when you’re under pressure or faced with complexity?
8. How do you handle and implement feedback?
9. What do you enjoy most about working in this organization?
10. How have you adapted to recent changes in the organization?
11. What innovations would you make in this role to improve the organization and achieve higher growth rates?
12. How would you lead a team that includes previous colleagues?
13. Can you share a time you supported a colleague in hitting a target and what results you had?
14. How would you handle conflicts in this new role?
15. What interests you most about this role?
How to evaluate candidate responses effectively
Identifying the best candidate from interview responses can be challenging but is absolutely critical to hiring right. Here are four key tips to help you evaluate interview answers effectively:
1. Check candidates’ job fit for the role
From the beginning of the interview, assess every answer for pointers that indicate job fit and understanding of the job’s requirements. What skills and experience have they acquired in their current role, and how do they plan to use them in the new role? Their answers to these questions determine their impact and how successful they’re likely to be if moved to this position.
2. Assess the candidate’s desire for growth and flexibility
Even within the same organization, a new role will certainly bring fresh challenges, and employees should be ready to tackle them. Check for signs of a proactive, adaptable mindset, and ask questions that assess their openness to change and flexibility.
Without these qualities, an employee may have technical proficiency but still struggle within the role. Also, closing skill gaps will be difficult, as they’re unlikely to grow with a limited, rigid mindset and aversion to change.
3. Note any relevant examples
It’s not enough for candidates to say they have a skill; they should provide relevant instances where they demonstrated it. Ask for such examples, and note how strongly they applied their abilities in the situation. For example, in a leadership role, the employee should describe practical ways they built stronger relationships among their team members in the past and the results of these efforts.
4. Watch for nonverbal cues and body language
Beyond any other assessment method, interviews provide an opportunity to interact with and observe employees. Thus, in addition to their verbal responses, you should also watch out for bodily and facial expressions, which, though subtle, could provide deeper insights. Pay attention to their posture, tone, and other nonverbal cues, as these communicate their sincerity, interest in the position, and overall engagement.
Find the right hire within your organization with Vervoe
Internal interviews are great for identifying talent within your company and upskilling employees for organizational and individual growth. However, you must prepare well-rounded internal interview questions and supplement your interviews with accurate talent assessments to achieve this.
Vervoe has everything you need for successful employee evaluation, from skill assessments to job simulations and previews. Additionally, our AI grading and anti-cheating features ensure accuracy and speed to prevent matching employees to roles that are unsuitable for them. With these powerful tools at your disposal, you can unlock the full potential of your workforce.
So, are you ready to elevate your internal hiring strategy? Schedule a free demo with Vervoe and discover how we can help you find your ideal hire right `within your organization.
