This guide is for interviewers preparing questions. If you are a candidate rehearsing answers and follow-ups, use the separate ChatGPT mock-interview guide.
Start with a task, not a personality label
OpenAI's prompting documentation supports supplying context and asking for a particular output. It does not establish that generated interview questions are validated hiring instruments. Use your team's authorized hiring process to decide which questions and criteria are suitable.
For an original fictional print-production coordinator role, the task is to confirm which proof revision is approved before releasing work. The practice brief says:
- The customer approved proof B yesterday.
- A designer supplied proof C today after changing a panel of text.
- The release folder contains C, but no approval for C is recorded.
- The coordinator can pause release and request confirmation; they cannot approve the customer's wording.
The interviewer wants to hear how the candidate identifies the approval gap and handles the next communication. That is more specific than asking whether the person is careful.
Make the question invite the evidence you need
A proposed question could be:
You are preparing a print job for release. The customer approved proof B yesterday. The release folder now contains proof C with a changed text panel, and you cannot find customer approval for C. What would you check, and what would you communicate before releasing the job? You can pause release but cannot approve wording on the customer's behalf.
This question supplies the relevant authority limit. It lets a candidate explain checks and communication without guessing an invisible company rule.
Compare it with “Would you release the newest file?” That version encourages a yes-or-no response and leaves the missing approval context unstated. Also avoid leading with “You know you must never release an unapproved proof, so what would you do?” It tells the candidate the central response before they explain their approach.
These are authored question examples. They were not used to interview or score a real candidate.
Copy a question-design prompt
Help prepare interview questions for [ROLE].
Approved job tasks and responsibilities: [PASTE]
One task to discuss: [ENTER]
Authority limits, information available, and constraints: [PASTE]
Interview time and team's question/followup procedure: [ENTER]
Propose 3 alternative questions about this one task. Do not ask all
three in a single compound question. For each alternative, explain
what part of the response it invites and what important information
the candidate would need to answer it.
Check for hidden company rules, leading wording, irrelevant biography,
and criteria the question never gives the candidate a chance to show.
Do not invent role requirements or infer personal traits from wording.
Label all questions and observations as proposals for human review.
Do not rate candidates or claim the questions predict performance.
Choose an alternative that fits the task and available time. A question that asks about checking, communication, prioritization, conflict resolution, and a past failure all at once is hard to answer and hard to interpret. Narrow it before adding a scoring scheme.
Agree on the question before reviewing answers
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's structured-interview guidance describes predetermined questions in a consistent order and evaluating responses using the same scale and standards. Follow the hiring team's agreed approach to wording and follow-ups; do not improvise a harder scenario for one candidate because their first answer sounded fluent.
For the print example, ask a colleague to read the question without your preparation notes. Can they identify which version is approved, which version is in the folder, and what authority the coordinator has? If a detail necessary to answer exists only in your notes, add it to the question or remove the criterion that depends on it.
Then prepare the team's approved response criteria. The interview-scorecard guide covers recording observed response evidence beside those criteria. Save the agreed question and its version with the interview materials so each interviewer asks about the same work under the same stated conditions.