When you’re interviewing for positions in your human resources department like HR Director, it’s particularly important to be able to assess all candidates using the same data (or scoring). This is where structured interviews come in. In a structured interview, questions are determined in advance and consistent. In unstructured interviews, the questions are not set in advance or may come from a loose set of notes from a hiring manager.

List of HR Director Interview Questions

Based on the qualifications you’re looking for, your HR Director interview questions should be open-ended but structured so that candidates may provide specific information that will distinguish them from the other candidates you’re interviewing for the position. Asking the right questions during the interview is crucial to selecting the right candidates to hire.

How to Interview and Select an HR Director 

Often responsible for HR teams of two or more, human resource directors oversee a region, a number of locations, or serve as the highest-ranking member of HR within the company – but this is not always the case. Human Resource Directors often are responsible for building annual budgets and are often the decision makers when it comes to buying software, systems and negotiating benefits offerings for the company. Less likely to be a department of one than the HR Manager, their responsibilities are less compliance and policy and more focused on building relationships with executive team members and driving results for the organization focused on human capital and company. 

One of the most common questions I’m asked is who reports to the Human Resources Director position. Most common, this position has a number of HR team members reporting to them, however, this is dependent on the HR team structure. Commonly, HR Generalists, HR Managers, and Coordinators often report to this role.

Interview Questions to Ask Human Resources Director Candidates 

Below are a list of Interview questions for Human Resources Director to get you started. You can access our downloadable resource called  for more interview tips and downloadable interview forms to use during the hiring process.

1) Tell me about your last experience recruiting, interviewing, or hiring an employee. What techniques did you find most effective in finding the right person for the job?

2) How do you define employee engagement? What factors are the most important to you when analyzing this metric?

3) What are some long-range objectives that you developed in your last job? What did you do to achieve them?

4) What are the qualities that make a good leader for a human resources team? 

5) What technology and tools do you believe are essential for HR management?

6) In your current (or most recent) role, what kinds of problems do you help solve on a daily basis? 

7) Did you enact any changes at your last company you felt especially proud of?

8) In your experience, what is the key to developing a good team?

9) After learning about this opportunity, what made you take the next step and apply for the job?

10) Has your perception of this opportunity changed based on our interview?

Once the interviews for the job are completed, it’s up to you and your team to decide on which of your top prospects is the one that you are going to offer the job. The key when interviewing and selecting HR Director candidates is to be sure of the job requirements and most important skills and abilities to ensure you are selecting the most qualified and capable person for the human resources assistant job you have an opening for.

Grab our downloadable HR Director Interview Guide along with a handful of other helpful human resources interview questions guides to help staff up your HR team.