The final interview stage is hallowed ground. Only the best candidates have made it this far, and you have the joy of interviewing the cream of the crop.
Far from being just a formality, cultural fit is assessed at this stage, and it’s your last chance to leave a lasting impression on your favorite candidates.
To help you make your next hire with total confidence, we’ve compiled a list of 27 final interview questions for you to have handy. They’re designed to help you understand the true personality and potential of your final cohort before landing on an official hiring decision.
Trust us—we’ve got years of experience in this world and even gathered some insights from recent candidates and our own internal recruitment team! The inside scoop is served ice cold just for you.
TL;DR — Key Takeaways
The final interview is the last chance to leave a good impression on your best talent. While you are interviewing them, they are doing the same with you, so make the final interview a space to open up discussion from both parties.
By the final interview, you’ve already tested their skills competency, looked through portfolios, or even assigned homework assignments. So, keep the final interview focused on culture, motivation, and work style.
Don’t take a long time to make your decision, or you might miss out on top talent. If you can’t make a quick decision after the final interview, we suggest reviewing your hiring process, as you are likely missing a few key steps.
An interview scorecard can be a huge time saver while also ensuring fair evaluations of candidates. Download a template to standardize your interviews, or use hiring software with built-in interview scorecards.
The importance of final interviews
The final interview gives hiring managers the chance to learn more about candidates’ abilities, experiences, and motivations. It gives you a window into their personality and how they might fit in with the wider company culture and future vision.
In our experience, the final interview can be challenging. You’re looking for small indicators of cultural fit and future job performance among a tiny cohort of very talented people. They’re all likely able to do the job really well, making the final hiring decision really tough.
From what we’ve seen, probing candidates’ problem-solving skills and the way they think through solutions is a great way to approach this. It helps reveal their way of thinking, which is a great indicator of how well-suited they’ll be to your culture.
Top tip:
Getting this stage right is perhaps the most important aspect of the interviewing stage of hiring, as it has a direct impact on team dynamics, morale, productivity, and the company’s success.
27 great final-round interview questions to ask
So, how do you probe a candidate’s problem-solving and other skills to ensure you’re making the right decision about extending that offer?
You ask the right questions! We’ve put this list together of great final interview questions to ask to help you gain deeper insights into your candidates’ capabilities and suitability for the role.
These 27 questions have been curated to cover different aspects relevant to a new hire, such as situational judgment, motivation, work style, and potential in the company, to name a few.
Final interview questions about situational judgment
❓Tell me about a time when you worked with a difficult stakeholder. How did you handle them?
1. Use this question to reveal a candidate’s conflict resolution skills, emotional intelligence, and ability to manage relationships under pressure. These can be important in roles like customer service or project management, where the new hire will often have to seek positive outcomes in challenging situations.
❓What’s more important: Delivering a project on time and “good enough” or delaying a project until it’s perfect?
2. It’s important to know what your candidates value and how it aligns with your company or industry. Scrappy startups that need to get sh*t done might want a “done is better than perfect” attitude, whereas a tax or insurance business, where details matter, might prefer a perfectionist. Use this question to assess your candidates’ comfort zone and how it aligns with your organization’s.
❓If you have to disagree with your boss, how would you handle the situation?
3. This question reveals a candidate’s approach to handling disagreements, tact, and balance of assertiveness and diplomacy. It’s super powerful when assessing a candidate’s conflict resolution skills, emotional intelligence, and ability to maintain positive working relationships.
❓Tell me about a time when you failed.
4. A classic! This question can show you how comfortable a candidate is betting on themselves or trying something new. It’s important to evaluate their resilience, self-awareness, and ability to learn from setbacks.
Top tip:
A good answer to the question above will turn the failure into an opportunity for reflection and learning and ultimately reinforce a growth mindset.
Final interview questions about motivation
❓What are you looking for in your next job?
5. This question reveals your candidate’s motivations and career aspirations. Be sure what they share aligns with what you can offer. Failing to do this could have you back at the recruitment drawing board faster than you’d like.
❓Why did you leave your last job?
6. Get to know your candidate’s motivation, work preferences, and potential deal-breakers. This will help you identify how they handle career transitions and whether they might leave your company for similar reasons down the line.
❓What interested you in working here?
7. Who took the time to do their homework? Check in on what exactly gets them excited about the role. You’ll gain insight into how they conduct research, their values and enthusiasm, which is a good predictor of long-term engagement, productivity, and cultural alignment.
❓Why did you apply for this role?
8. Similar to the previous question, the hiring manager asks candidates to show what they found especially interesting about this position. This will help you better understand what they value in day-to-day work and how well it aligns with any past experience they may have.
❓What would make you quit in your first month here?
9. A slightly more aggressive question, this could be a good option if you’re hard-pressed to understand someone’s deal-breakers. Maybe it’s a micromanaging boss, too many calls to last-minute meetings, a toxic colleague, or even a better offer. Whatever their answer, you’ll get a better look into who they are and what drives them.
❓Where do you see yourself in five years?
10. This question still helps you understand your candidate’s ambition and aspirations. Pay attention to the candidates who answer honestly rather than saying what they think you want to hear. They’re the ones you want to keep around.
Top tip:
This is a bit of an outdated question, as the average tenure in the private sector is 3.7 years these days. So, adjust accordingly and ask where they see themselves in two to three years. It might also be worth adjusting your expectations of how long employees stay with companies nowadays.
Final interview questions about their processes
❓What tools do you use to do your job?
11. Get an idea of how much or how little training this candidate would need if they started tomorrow. The more familiar they are with the technology and tools you already use internally, the faster they will be to get up to speed and start adding value to your company.
❓How do you stay organized?
12. You need a new hire who can manage tasks independently and efficiently. This question reveals their time management and prioritization skills. Plus, if they already use the same tools as the organization, that’s an immediate bonus and a more seamless integration.
❓How do you learn new software?
13. Similar to the others, this question helps you understand how much training this person would need in the specific role you’re hiring for. Perhaps you see potential in them, but they aren’t on the same tech stack as you. That doesn’t have to be a deal breaker as long as they’re a fast and effective learner. So ask them how they learn.
❓Tell me something about you that would come as a surprise if you started today.
14. This unconventional question is excellent for gauging self-awareness, honesty, and the candidate’s understanding of the company culture.
Top tip:
This is tough to evaluate, and you want to be careful how you ask it, too. It’s important to be inclusive and not disadvantage candidates who may be neurodivergent or do things differently than you or the team leader would.
Final interview questions about their work style
❓How do you like to be managed?
15. Get a sense of a candidate’s preferred management style and how well it aligns with your company’s leadership approach. It’s a great cultural question that also helps you get to know your candidate better.
❓How do you prefer to receive feedback?
16. Similar to the question above, this helps to understand whether your candidates prefer verbal or written feedback, given in a performance review or ad hoc messages. While it’s ultimately your responsibility to tailor feedback to each employee, getting someone in the door who “gets” your existing feedback style can save a lot of sour feelings and time down the line.
❓What type of work environment do you most enjoy?
17. This helps verify whether the candidate will thrive in the environment you have to offer. This question helps you confirm compatibility, which is a great precursor for job satisfaction and productivity.
❓Do you like working collaboratively or independently?
18. There’s no right or wrong answer here, it depends on the role. Some will lean more toward one end of the spectrum, some to the other. Getting to know your candidate’s work style preferences can ensure you pick the best person for the demands of the role.
Top tip:
Remember the answers to these questions when onboarding and working with the person you choose to hire. As much as you can, create a work environment that supports their preferences, such as offering them feedback the way they prefer to receive it or assigning them an onboarding buddy if they prefer close collaboration with others.
Final interview questions about their impact and potential in the role
❓If hired, how would you want to grow within the company? How do you think you’d do it?
19. This question is two-in-one. First, it reveals the candidate’s understanding of the company’s structure and overall goals. Then, it highlights their personal career ambitions and how they see themselves achieving them. It’s important to know if your company is a place where they can achieve what they’re after.
❓If you got this job, what do you think would be the biggest challenge, and how would you handle it?
20. Again, this question requires some in-depth knowledge of the company from the candidate. It forces the candidate to take off any rose-tinted glasses they might have and evaluate the position from a more neutral position, which shows their emotional intelligence and diplomatic thinking.
❓How do you prioritize competing deadlines?
21. It’s important that whoever you eventually hire has good time management and organizational skills. Being capable of balancing multiple tasks and prioritizing effectively is key to preventing burnout long-term.
❓What could we do to improve [something at your company]?
22. It’s easy to point out flaws in a system but much harder to articulate how you’d actually solve them. This question reveals your candidates’ initiative, problem-solving skills, and willingness to assume risk and possible failure. It’s a great question for leadership positions.
Final interview questions about getting started on the job
❓Now that you’ve learned the full scope of this position, do you have any doubts about the compensation package?
23. By now, you should have already discussed salary (it should have been in the job description from the start!). But now that they understand more about the company, the role, and their day-to-day tasks, it’s important to gauge how they feel about how that all lines up with the compensation package you’re offering. This is a chance to ensure mutual understanding and prevent future conflicts over salary.
❓When is the earliest you can begin working for us?
24. This question is simple and straightforward. It confirms the candidate’s availability and readiness to start. It helps plan the onboarding process and ensures there are no conflicts or delays in filling the position.
Top tip:
If any issues do come up about the compensation package, work quickly to negotiate those issues. The longer you take to deliver a final offer, the more you risk losing out on top talent.
Final interview questions about personal interests
❓When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
25. Mental flexibility is an incredibly valuable skill, especially in the modern workforce, where technologies and strategies are constantly changing. The ability to admit when one is wrong or change one’s mind in the face of new evidence is a strong green flag for any candidate.
❓When was the last time you learned something new?
26. ou want a new hire who is curious, proactive, and unafraid of putting themselves out there. This is a great question that will help you gauge that while also learning something about your candidate’s hobbies and interests outside work.
❓What are your interests outside of work?
27. Because we are humans working with humans, after all! It’s nice to bond on a social level beyond just work.
How to choose the best candidate as a hiring manager
With the interviews behind you, you’ve got a big decision to make! First, you’ll need to ensure you’re evaluating all your candidates fairly and objectively. Standardized evaluation criteria like an interview scorecard can be a great way to do this.
When building this scorecard, be thoughtful of the criteria you want to include. Both cultural fit and technical skill should definitely be on there. Other factors to consider include body language, engagement during the interview, and the answers themselves.
Be sure to gather information from every interviewer in the process to get a well-rounded perspective on each candidate.
Once you’ve compiled your scorecard and candidate performance information, you can get started on your evaluation. We’ve outlined some strategies you can use to effectively evaluate candidates based on their responses to the final stage questions:
Consistency: Cross-check their answers with earlier responses and their resume for consistency and honesty. Did they add layers to their experience or repeat the same thing every round?
Depth of insight: Razor-sharp examples beat bland responses any day. Take note of who dazzled you with details—they’ve probably got a lot more where that came from.
Alignment with role: Line up your candidate’s skills, experiences, and career goals with the job requirements and opportunities for progress.
Behavioral indicators: Candidate’s behavior can be a great indicator of engagement, enthusiasm, and soft skills like problem-solving, adaptability, and communication.
Cultural fit: How well do you think they’ll gel with the company culture, mission, and values? Remember, it’s better to hire for cultural add than cultural fit. This is one of the best ways to ensure your company remains inclusive and competitive in the job market.
After all of this, you should know which inbox your job offer is landing in. Congratulations, you’ve just made your newest hire!
Use Toggl Hire to assess and hire the best talent
Crafting final interview questions is tough—there’s so much to cover and so little time! Our skills test library is full of role-specific question templates that are great starting points for developing your own specific final interview questions.
Here’s what those look like once you create your account. 👇
Alongside the templates, Toggl Hire also offers advanced assessment tools which provide details of each candidate’s skills, strengths, and areas for improvement. These insights help hiring managers tailor their final interview questions to address specific competencies and gaps, ensuring a more focused and effective interview process.
We’re also launching scorecards soon to help you with standardized interview evaluations! They’ll make it easier to compare candidates and ensure that all critical areas are covered during the final interview stage.
Be amongst the first to try it when it’s released by creating a free account today!
Julia is a freelance writer and fierce remote work advocate. While traveling full-time, she writes about the intersection of technology and productivity, the future of work, and more. Outside work, you can find her hiking, dancing, or reading in a coffee shop.
