--- layout: post date: 2025-04-05 link: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/eight-essential-interview-questions-ceos-swear-by/ title: 8 Essential Interview Questions CEOs Swear By cited: Sloan Review --- ## 1. Why Do You Really Want to Work Here Specifically? * 1.1. What have you learned about our company beyond what you’ve read on the website? * 1.2. What do you think you might be able to do that’s different from what we’re already doing? * 1.3. Why is our company and this job the right next step in your professional and personal journey? ## 2. What Makes You Tick? * 2.1. What shapes you as a leader and colleague? * 2.2. What do you enjoy the most and the least in your current job? * 2.3. How do you define professional fulfilment? ## 3. How Is Your Accountability and Determination? * 3.1. What's a hard problem you’ve faced, and how did you handle it? * 3.2. What leadership muscles did you build or strengthen during the intense period of disruption caused by the pandemic? * 3.3. How have you led change in previous roles? ## 4. How Hungry Are You to Learn and Build New Skills? * 4.1. What idea, challenge, or question has captured your interest and is driving you to learn more about it now? * 4.2. If your core expertise is your “major,” what is your professional “minor”? What interests you and why? * 4.3. How do you want to be better at your job over the next two years? What will you do to achieve that? ## 5. Are You a Team Player? * 5.1. What is your playbook for influencing people who don’t report to you? * 5.2. What was the best and worst team you’ve worked on? What were the dynamics of each of them? * 5.3 How do you deal with difficult interpersonal issues at work? ## 6. Are You Self-Aware? * 6.1. What’s the most surprising negative feedback you’ve received, and what did you do about it? * 6.2. What are your triggers, and how do you manage them? * 6.3. How do you challenge your own assumptions? ## 7. Will You Thrive in Our Organization? * 7.1. What did you like the most and least about previous organizational cultures where you worked? * 7.2. How did you “merge into traffic” with a new organizational culture when you changed jobs in the past? * 7.3. What are the lasting fingerprints you’ve left in previous companies where you’ve worked? ## 8. How Are Your Leadership Capabilities? * 8.1. When you start with a new team, what do you tell the people are the three most important values to you as a leader, and why those values are important to you? * 8.2. When you mentor and coach people, what are the most common themes that come up in those conversations? * 8.3. How do you ensure that your teams operate like true teams?