Dealing with an HR interview

Most hiring processes in mid-sized and large companies run through several stages. Here are five, out of order. Put them in the sequence you'd expect to meet them. Then decide which ones you've actually experienced, and which you think could be cut without losing anything.

A. A short meeting with a director or department head. Mostly about your motivation and whether your seniority matches the role. Often a formality; occasionally not.

B. A practical test: a case study, a written exercise, a presentation, a coding task or a sample of work. Sometimes at home, sometimes on the spot. Assessed by someone who does the job, not necessarily by your future boss.

C. A 20–30 minute phone or video call. Are you who your CV says you are? Can you legally work here? What are you earning now, what do you want, when could you start, why are you leaving? Nobody is hired at this stage; people are only removed.

D. A longer conversation with the person you'd report to. What you've done, how you'd handle the actual problems of the job, whether they'd want to sit next to you for the next three years.

E. A round with people from outside the team — often HR, sometimes a mixed panel — built around the company's values. "Tell me about a time when…" questions: teamwork, conflict, failure, pressure.

The "correct" order

C → D → B → E → A

C, the screen, comes first because it's cheap. A recruiter can do eight of these in a day, and each one removes candidates who'd waste an hour of a manager's time: the salary is wrong, the visa is wrong, the person isn't really interested.

D, the hiring manager, comes next because they own the decision and their time is the scarcest. The recruiter's job is to make sure only people worth that hour reach it.

B, the task, follows the manager rather than preceding it because tasks are expensive for the candidate. Sending a four-hour task to thirty people is bad manners and bad for the company's reputation; sending it to five is fine.

E, values or panel, comes late because it's about risk, not skill. By this point the company believes you can do the job; it's checking whether you'll cause problems doing it.

A, senior sign-off, comes last because it's a veto, not a filter. The director sees one or two people, not ten.

Two common variations: small companies collapse everything into D, plus maybe a coffee with the founder. Very large companies sometimes run E before D, because HR gatekeeps the manager's calendar.

Discussion

How similar / different is this to your current / previous job?

Which step are you (or would you be) most comfortable / uncomfortable with?

Have you ever worked with someone about whom you thought, "How on Earth did they pass the values interview?"

Come up with a list of three things you think an HR might be thinking of while they are doing the values interview.

Now read the text and see if any of your answers to the last question are mentioned

What HRs are really thinking in the interview

Anna Reinholt leads talent and culture at a mid-sized SaaS company in Copenhagen. Before that she spent nine years in agency recruitment and four running interview training for hiring managers. She writes irregularly about hiring, mostly to annoy recruiters. Her first book, The Second Year, is due in 2027.

What I'm listening for while you tell me your story

I run the values interview. By the time you reach me, the recruiter has confirmed you're real and the hiring manager has confirmed you can do the job. Nobody needs me to check either of those. My job is narrower and, from the candidate's side, much stranger: I'm trying to work out what you'll be like to manage when things go wrong. Here's what's actually happening in my head.

I'm not grading your story. I'm checking whether it happened. Every "tell me about a time" question has a shape you can learn — situation, action, result — and most people have learned it. So I'm listening for the details you couldn't have invented: the colleague's name, the thing that went wrong first, the awkward bit. Rehearsed stories are smooth. Real ones have a moment where the person pauses because they're remembering, not reciting.

I count your pronouns. If you say "we" through the whole thing, I ask what you personally did. If the answer is vague, the story wasn't yours. If you say "I" through the whole thing, I wonder where everyone else was.

The failure question is the only one I really care about. "Tell me about a time something went wrong." Half the candidates give me a success dressed as a failure — the project was late, but it was still brilliant. A quarter give me a failure that was somebody else's. The rest tell me what they actually got wrong and what they'd do differently, and those are the people I mark highest, every time.

When you talk about a conflict, I'm imagining you in the argument, not the resolution. Everyone claims they "listened to both sides and found a compromise". I want to know what you said when you were annoyed. I want to know whether you can tell me the other person's position fairly. If you can't, you didn't understand it at the time either.

I've read the manager's notes, and I'm checking they match. Not the facts — the person. If she wrote "very collaborative" and you spend twenty minutes telling me how you did everything yourself, one of you is wrong, and it's not usually her.

I've read our values page and I'm hoping you haven't memorised it. When someone says "I really believe in radical ownership" and I know that's line three of our careers page, I switch off. Show me an example that happens to fit a value. Don't name the value.

I'm asking myself one question all the way through: would I want to be the manager who has to give this person bad news? Some people are excellent and impossible. They're right, they know it, and every correction becomes a negotiation. I'm not looking for compliant. I'm looking for correctable.

And when I say no, the manager usually goes with it. That's the part candidates don't expect. My round comes after the technical one, so it feels like a formality. It isn't. The manager wants to hire you; I'm the person whose job is to think about the second year, not the first month. When we disagree, she can override me — but she'll have to say why, in writing, and most people don't.

discussion

Which of the writer's points did you predict in section 3? Which surprised you? Which do you think she's exaggerating for effect?

"Rehearsed stories are smooth. Real ones have a moment where the person pauses." Is that true? Can you rehearse a real story until it sounds fake?

She says the failure question is the only one she really cares about. What's a failure from your own experience that you could safely tell in an interview? Is there one you couldn't?

"Don't name the value." Does a company that publishes its values on a careers page have the right to be annoyed when candidates quote it back?

The HR interviewer can effectively veto a hire the manager wants. Is that a good system? Who should have the final word — the person who'll manage the hire, or the person thinking about "the second year"?

Now take a look at the vacancy below.

Do you think you could do this job?

And check out the company's values page below

Student A

You've passed the recruiter screen and the hiring manager interview for the Customer Success Coordinator role at Northlane. This is the values round with someone from HR who isn't on the team. You know they'll ask for stories, and you know what they're listening for.

Before you start, prepare four stories.

One story each for:

• a time you dealt with a difficult customer or colleague;

• a time you made a mistake with a real consequence;

• a time you noticed a problem before anyone else and what you did about it;

• a time you disagreed with a manager.

Give each one a specific detail that makes it sound lived rather than prepared, including a name, a number, the thing that went wrong first. Decide which pronoun each story deserves.

Don't quote the values page. Prepare two questions to ask at the end that are about this interviewer's view of the company.

student b

You conduct the values interview at Northlane. You're not on the customer success team and you won't work with this person. The manager wants to hire them; you've seen her notes, which say "strong, organised, a bit quick to take things on alone." Your job is to decide whether you can sign off.

Ask for at least four stories, each tied to a Northlane value without naming it: something that went wrong and what they did about it; a disagreement with a boss or a customer; a time they took on something outside their role; a time they had to give someone bad news. For each story, ask one follow-up that tests whether it's real — what exactly did you do, what did the other person say, what would you do differently now.

Keep three private judgements running: Is this story lived or made-up? Does this person match the manager's notes? Would I want to be the one telling them they got something wrong?

Reflection

How did the role play go? Was it difficult to stay in character?

Applicants: which of the stories do you think you told best?

Recruiters: who of the stories do you your applicant told best?

What's one thing from today you'd change in your own interview technique (in English or in your own language)?

How much of a factor was accessing the right language in the role play? How would you feel about doing an actual job interview in English?