When interviewing, asking the right questions can open the door to genuine insights and a better interview experience. So, which questions truly resonate with candidates? Our latest research, led by the Data Scientists at Sapia Labs, reveals the top five questions that candidates appreciate the most from our Chat Interview experience, that over 5 million candidates from 47 countries have completed.
Why is asking the right questions important?
The Live Interview is crucial to volume hiring. Having the opportunity to meet for the first time, to extend the connection already created online – it’s almost like the first date of the volume hiring experience. Showing up unprepared or asking questions that candidates can’t engage with is a waste of everyone’s time.
Asking questions candidates actually enjoy
Interviews can go sideways – either candidates feel like they’ve been part of a scripted exercise, where standard questions that don’t engender creativity or imagination are rolled out one by one; or, if the interviewer is underprepared, questions can appear out of the blue and feel largely irrelevant to the role.
But certain questions break the mould—they encourage authenticity, spark reflection, and sometimes even pride. Rather than prompting canned responses, these questions invite candidates to share real experiences that shaped them. After analysing feedback from thousands of candidates, here are the five most-loved interview questions and why they matter.
- Making a Difference
“Tell us about a time you went out of your way to make a difference for someone and improved their day.”
Why candidates love it: It’s a chance to talk about something positive they’ve done. People enjoy reflecting on moments that mattered, whether big or small, and this question lets them share proud memories. For the hiring team, it reveals a candidate’s potential to bring kindness, positivity, and empathy to your team and customers.
- Handling Difficult People
“Have you ever dealt with someone difficult? How did you handle the situation? Feel free to share examples from work, school, or any group activity.”
Why candidates love it: We’ve all had tough encounters, and this question lets candidates share how they navigated those situations. Their response can reveal resilience, tact, or empathy. Plus, every workplace has its challenges—this question lets them show their approach to handling them.
- Driving Change
“Tell us how you have been proactive in driving change that had a lasting impact.”
Why candidates love it: Everyone has had moments when they took initiative, big or small. This question gives candidates a chance to reflect on those times when they went beyond the status quo and made a real difference. It also reveals whether they see themselves as someone who can step up to make things better.
- Missing Deadlines
“Describe a time when you missed a deadline or personal commitment. How did that make you feel?”
Why candidates love it: This question is refreshingly human. We’ve all missed deadlines, and this question creates space for honesty, vulnerability, and growth – without the awkwardness of the classic “what are your weaknesses?” angle. It’s less about the setback itself and more about how a candidate understands, reflects and moves forward from it.
- Team Support
“Tell us about a time when you rolled up your sleeves to help out your team or someone else.”
Why candidates love it: This question highlights the power of teamwork. Candidates get to share the moments they stepped up and supported others. It shows both teamwork and leadership potential, indicating if this candidate is someone who’ll contribute something bigger than their individual tasks.
Why these questions are impactful
These interview questions tap into values that are universally meaningful. Candidates don’t just want to list their skills; they want to share stories that matter to them. When you ask questions like these, you’re inviting candidates to reflect on personal moments of challenge, motivation, and connection. They get to walk away feeling heard and appreciated – before they’ve even received a job offer.
Interviews, whether face to face or via chat, should be a positive experience for candidates. They’re a chance to connect with the person behind the application. That’s why we built our online assessment Chat Interview on a foundation of questions like these. So the first experience a candidate has with your brand is one of genuine connection.
Why you should consider questions like these in your interviews
Incorporating these questions shows candidates that you value their unique experiences. By making small adjustments to the questions you ask, you create a space where candidats can open up and share more meaningful responses. And that’s the first step in finding candidates who genuinely fit with your team and culture. Shifting to questions that candidates love can elevate your interview process, leaving candidates feeling inspired and excited about the prospect of working with you.
Transforming Interviews, One Question at a Time
This research underscores a core belief we hold: Interviews are an experience, not just an assessment. A good interview reveals job-related skills while also building trust and creating advocates for your brand.
At Sapia.ai, we know interviewing. Whether that’s giving your candidates an engaging interview over chat as their first experience with your brand; or enabling your team to conduct better live interviews, our platform enhances the end to end volume hiring process.
We’re proud to champion a new way of interviewing that prioritises candidate experience and genuine connection. After all, when candidates feel good about the questions you ask, they’re more likely to bring their best selves – helping you find the people that belong with your brand..
Curious to learn more? Get in touch to see how we’re reshaping hiring into a more human, meaningful experience – one great question at a time.
Related
Blog
Joe & the Juice Partners with Sapia.ai, Scaling an Exceptional Candidate Experience and Cutting Time to Hire
Read the full press release about the partnership here.
Joe & the Juice, the trailblazing global juice bar and coffee concept, is renowned for its vibrant culture and commitment to cultivating talent. With humble roots from one store in Copenhagen, now with a presence in 17 markets, Joe & The Juice has built a culture that fosters growth and celebrates individuality.
But, as their footprint expands, so does the challenge of finding and hiring the right talent to embody their unique culture. With over 300,000 applications annually, the traditional hiring process using CVs was falling short – leaving candidates waiting and creating inefficiencies for the recruitment team. To address this, Joe & The Juice turned to Sapia.ai, a pioneer in ethical AI hiring solutions.
A Fresh Approach to Hiring
Through this partnership, Joe & The Juice has transformed its hiring process into an inclusive, efficient, and brand-aligned experience. Instead of faceless CVs, candidates now engage in an innovative chat-based interview that reflects the brand’s energy and ethos. Available in multiple languages, the AI-driven interview screens for alignment with the “Juicer DNA” and the brand’s core values, ensuring that every candidate feels seen and valued.
Candidates receive an engaging and fair interview experience as well as personality insights and coaching tips as part of their journey. In fact, 93% of candidates have found these insights useful, helping to deliver a world-class experience to candidates who are also potential guests of the brand.
“Every candidate interaction reflects our brand,” Sebastian Jeppesen, Global Head of Recruitment, shared. “Sapia.ai makes our recruitment process fair, enriching, and culture-driven.”
Results That Matter
For Joe & The Juice, the collaboration has yielded impressive results:
-
33% Reduction in Screening Time: Pre-vetted shortlists from Sapia.ai’s platform ensure that recruiters can focus on top candidates, getting them behind the bar faster.
-
Improved Candidate Satisfaction: With a 9/10 satisfaction score from over 55,000 interviews, candidates appreciate the fairness and transparency of the process.
-
Bias-Free Hiring: By eliminating CVs and integrating blind AI that prioritizes fairness, Joe & The Juice ensures their hiring reflects the diverse communities they serve.
Frederik Rosenstand, Group Director of People & Development at Joe & The Juice, highlighted the transformative impact: “Our juicers are our future leaders, so using ethical AI to find the people who belong at Joe is critical to our long-term success. And now we do that with a fair, unbiased experience that aligns directly with our brand.”
Trailblazing for the hospitality industry
In an industry so wholly centred on people, Joe & the Juice is paving the way for similar brands to adopt technology that enables inclusive, human-first experiences that can reflect a brand’s core values.
If you’re curious about how Sapia.ai can transform your hiring process, check out our full case study on Joe & The Juice here.
Blog
Sapia.ai Wrapped 2024
It’s been a year of Big Moves at Sapia.ai. From welcoming groundbreaking brands to achieving incredible milestones in our product innovation and scale, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in hiring.
And we’re just getting started 🚀
Take a look at the highlights of 2024
All-in-one hiring platform
This year, with the addition of Live Interview, we’re proud to say our platform now covers screening, assessing and scheduling.
It’s an all-in-one volume hiring platform that enables our customers to deliver a world-leading experience from application through to offer.
Supercharging hiring efficiency
Every 15 seconds, a candidate is interviewed with Sapia.ai.
This year, we’ve saved hiring managers and recruiters hours of precious time that can now be used for higher-value tasks.
Giving candidates the best experience
Our platform allows candidates to be their best selves, so our customers can find the people that truly belong with them. They’re proud to use a technology that’s changing hiring, for good.
Leading the way in AI for hiring
We’ve continued to push the boundaries in leveraging ethical AI for hiring, with new products on the way for Coaching, Internal Mobility & Interview Builders.
Blog
Situational Judgement Tests vs. AI Chat Interviews: A Modern Perspective on Candidate Assessment
Choosing the right tool for assessing candidates can be challenging. For years, situational judgement tests (SJTs) have been a common choice for evaluating behaviour and decision-making skills. However, they come with limitations that can make the hiring process less effective and less inclusive.
AI-enabled chat-based interviews, such as Sapia.ai, provide organisations with a modern alternative. They focus on understanding candidates as individuals and creating a hiring experience that is both fair and insightful while enabling efficient screening and selection.
This shift raises important questions: Are SJTs still a tool that should be considered for volume hiring? And what do AI assessments offer in comparison?
1. The Static Nature of SJTs
Traditional SJTs use predefined multiple-choice questions to assess behavioural tendencies and situational knowledge. While useful for screening, these static frameworks lack the flexibility to adapt based on real-world performance data or evolving role requirements.
Once created, SJTs don’t adapt to new data or evolving organisational needs. They rely on fixed scenarios and responses that may not fully reflect the dynamic realities of modern workplaces, and as a result, their relevance may diminish over time.
AI-enabled chat interviews, on the other hand, are inherently adaptive. Using machine learning, these tools can continuously refine their models based on feedback from real-world outcomes such as hiring or turnover data. This ability to evolve ensures the assessments align with organisations’ needs.
2. Richer Data Through Open-Ended Responses
One of the main critiques of SJTs is their reliance on multiple-choice responses. While structured and straightforward, these options may not capture the full scope of a candidate’s thinking, communication skills, or problem-solving ability. The approach is often limiting, reducing complex human behaviour to a few predefined choices.
AI-enabled chat interviews work more holistically and dynamically. These tools provide a more complete picture of a person by allowing candidates to answer questions in their own words. Natural language processing (NLP) analyses their responses, offering insights into personality traits, communication skills, and behavioural tendencies. This open-ended format lets candidates express themselves authentically, giving employers a deeper understanding of their potential.
3. The Candidate Experience: Stressful or Supportive?
SJTs often include time constraints and rigid formats, which can create pressure for candidates. This is especially true when candidates feel forced to choose options that don’t fully reflect how they would actually behave. The process can feel impersonal, even transactional.
In contrast, chat-based interviews are designed to be conversational and low-pressure for candidates. By removing time limits and adopting a familiar chat interface, these tools help candidates feel more at ease. They also frequently include personalised feedback, turning the assessment into a valuable experience for the candidate, not just the employer.
4. Addressing Bias and Fairness
Traditional SJTs are prone to transparency issues, as candidates can often identify and select the “best practice” answers without revealing their true tendencies. Additionally, static test designs can unintentionally embed bias; due to the nature of the timed test, SJTs have been found to disadvantage some groups.
AI chat interviews, when developed ethically within a framework like Sapia.ai’s FAIR Hiring Framework, eliminate explicit bias by relying solely on the content of a candidate’s responses. Their machine learning models are continuously validated for fairness, ensuring that hiring decisions are free from subjective judgments or irrelevant demographic factors.
5. An Assessment That Improves Over Time
Workplaces are constantly changing, and hiring tools need to keep up. SJTs’ fixed nature can make them less effective as roles evolve or organizational priorities shift. They provide a snapshot but not a dynamic view of what’s needed.
AI-enabled chat interviews are built to adapt. With feedback loops and continuous learning, they incorporate real-world hiring outcomes—like retention and performance data—into their models. This ensures that assessments stay relevant and effective over time.
Rethinking Candidate Assessment
As hiring demands grow more complex, so does the need for tools that can capture the whole person, not just their response to hypothetical scenarios. While SJTs have played an important role in hiring practices, they are increasingly being replaced by tools like AI-enabled chat interviews.
These modern approaches provide richer data, adapt to changing needs, and create a richer and more engaging experience for candidates. Perhaps most importantly, they emphasise fairness and inclusivity, aligning with the growing demand for unbiased hiring practices.
For organisations evaluating their assessment tools, the question isn’t just which method is “better.” Understanding the specific needs of your roles, teams, and candidates will help you choose tools that help you make decisions that are both informed and equitable.