Recruitment and Selection: Interview Questions for HR Manager Position

This report presents a set of interview questions designed for the recruitment and selection of Human Resource (HR) managers. The questions cover various critical aspects of the HR role, including experience, contributions to business success, understanding of an ideal workplace, handling job eliminations, dealing with unethical situations, and the candidate's ability to formulate insightful interview questions. Each question is accompanied by a detailed justification, explaining the rationale behind its inclusion and the insights it aims to uncover. The report emphasizes the importance of assessing candidates' knowledge of HR laws and regulations, their ethical considerations, and their understanding of workplace culture. The references and the job description from Seek.com.au further enrich the content, making it a comprehensive guide for effective HR manager selection.

Running head: RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION
Professional Human Resource Management Practices
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Position- Human resource (HR) manager
Interview Questions
Question 1- Do you have any experience in any of the areas of the HR?
Justification- HR managers have many roles to play and are responsible for many duties.
Few managers are specialists for having wide range of knowledge regarding many areas
within the organization (Reiche, Mendenhall and Stahl 2016.). However, in small companies
the HR managers should have a good understanding of all the features of HR. Therefore, as
per the need of the company, the interviewer should discover whether the interviewee is
suitable for all the features that the company is looking for. Here the disciplines of HR that
needs consideration are regarding recruitment as well as staffing, training, development,
performance evaluation, policies as well as procedures, compensations, rewards, worker’s
and industrial relationships, organizational safety, payroll, HR administration and technology
followed by legal compliance (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). Therefore, this question needs to
be asked because HR managers have various types of experiences. At the time of interview if
the candidate is not from the same industry then this question is helpful to determine what
knowledge they hold regarding the issues as well as drives that can affect this industry where
they want to enter.
Question 2- How does the role of an HR contributes to the success of our business?
Justification- Every business needs to compile with the laws and regulations and for that
every company needs to depend on their HR management to ensure that the laws and
regulations are maintained (Bratton and Gold 2012). Therefore, while recruiting every
organization should know that whether the candidate is knowledgeable enough or not
regarding the various HR laws. However, that does not mean that organizations will need a

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lawyer with HR manager’s designation, the only criteria is that the candidate must have the
knowledge regarding their stuffs. This question is asked to know that whether the candidate
have the particular knowledge or interest regarding the laws and regulations that HR must
administer for which the candidate must read magazines as well as reports along with they
must be adequately qualified (Bryant and Allen 2013). They should have the HR newsletters
subscription, websites and habits to listen to HR podcasts.
Question 3- what do you consider as an ideal workplace?
Justification- This is an important question to ask the interviewee because it will allow the
interviewer to know that what the candidate personally feel of the workplace environment to
be so that he or she can deliver his or her job successfully (Woodrow and Guest 2014).
Through this question, it will get clear that whether the interviewee is at the right place or
not. The candidate will also get to know about the work environment of the organization,
which will help him or her understand that it is the right fit for them or not. Moreover, this
question can further help to take forward the interview by talking about how the interviewee
can shape the workplace and organizational culture if they are selected for the job. HR
managers play an important role in managing the workers along with the workplace culture
and surrounding. To deliver high performance work the HR managers must encourage and
support for a healthy environment so that everyone can perform their best (Monks et al.
2013).
Question 4- What do you think about Job eliminations from the point of view of an HR
manager?
Justification- HR manager’s job is not at all easy. Therefore, there are times when they need
to take tough calls like job eliminations, which can be through layoffs or firing. Layoffs and
firing are difficult most tasks for any supervisor (Wilton 2016). Thus, this question will help

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to know that what the viewpoint of the interviewee regarding such situations. Layoffs and
firing are never the first moves that an HR manager should take; rather he or she must have a
performance improvement plan so that the underperforming employee can get a chance to
perform well via the plan. However, even after the performance improvement plan if the
employees are not showing any improvement then the HR has to take the decision to let go
the employee for the betterment of the organization (Zhang et al. 2012). Therefore, this
question will give a clear-cut idea about how the interviewee can handle situations like these.
Question 5- What is your way of dealing with unethical situations? Can you provide any
example?
Justification- HR managers are always expected to speak for what is right and condemn the
unethical acts. This question will help the interviewer to know that what the moral of the
candidate is. Moreover, through this question it will be clear that whether he will be
reasonable enough while handling the unethical acts (Jack, Greenwood and Schapper 2012).
Ethics in the workplace is an important issue. The HR managers should have a strict control
over the ethical practices. HR managers should behave like a role model for other employees
to look up to him or her (Palanski, Avey and Jiraporn 2014). Therefore, this question will
help to know that whether the candidate have any past experience regarding any actions that
he or she might have taken to stop any unethical act in the workplace or what his or her plan
is to tackle such situations peacefully.
Question 6- If you were the interviewer, what are the questions you would have asked me?
Justification- This question can come at the end of the interview. This question can be a
good opportunity for the interviewee to come up with the ideas for the organization the
candidate is giving the interview. He or she must ask questions, which can reveal the type of
candidates this organization needs along with their present pain points. The interviewee must

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have that ability to ask such questions which the recruiters will not forget soon (Aswathappa
2013). However, along with presenting the questions they must also justify why they would
have asked that question if they would have been the interviewer. Through this question, the
interviewer would get to know that how eligible the candidate is because another major role
of HR is recruiting employees for the company. Moreover, to perform that task appropriately
they must have the clear conception that what they should ask in the interviews to get hold of
the actual potentials of the interviewees (Society for Human Resource Management
Foundation 2016).

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Reference
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Aswathappa, K., 2013. Human resource management: Text and cases. Tata McGraw-Hill
Education.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Bryant, P.C. and Allen, D.G., 2013. Compensation, benefits and employee turnover: HR
strategies for retaining top talent. Compensation & Benefits Review, 45(3), pp.171-175.
Jack, G., Greenwood, M. and Schapper, J., 2012. Frontiers, intersections and engagements of
ethics and HRM. Journal of business ethics, 111(1), pp.1-12.
Monks, K., Kelly, G., Conway, E., Flood, P., Truss, K. and Hannon, E., 2013. Understanding
how HR systems work: the role of HR philosophy and HR processes. Human resource
management journal, 23(4), pp.379-395.
Palanski, M., Avey, J.B. and Jiraporn, N., 2014. The effects of ethical leadership and abusive
supervision on job search behaviors in the turnover process. Journal of Business
Ethics, 121(1), pp.135-146.
Reiche, B.S., Mendenhall, M.E. and Stahl, G.K. eds., 2016. Readings and cases in
international human resource management. Taylor & Francis.
Society for Human Resource Management Foundation, (2016). [online] Available at:
http://Society for Human Resource Management Foundation, 2016, [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

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Wilton, N., 2016. An introduction to human resource management. Sage.
Woodrow, C. and Guest, D.E., 2014. When good HR gets bad results: Exploring the
challenge of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying. Human Resource
Management Journal, 24(1), pp.38-56.
Zhang, L., Wang, H., Cao, X., Wang, X. and Zhao, K., 2012. Knowledge management
component in managing human resources for enterprises. Information Technology and
Management, 13(4), pp.341-349.
Bibliography
Seek.com.au (2018). SEEK - Australia's no. 1 jobs, employment, career and recruitment site.
[online] SEEK. Available at: https://www.seek.com.au [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

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Appendix- Job description of Human resource manager from Seek

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