50 one-way video interview questions to ask, organized by role

Good one-way video interview questions are specific, answerable in one to three minutes without preparation materials, and designed to reveal how a candidate thinks and communicates rather than what they can recite. Below are 50 questions organized by role, preceded by the three rules that make questions work in a recorded format. If you are new to the format itself, start with what is a one-way video interview.

How to write questions for a recorded format

Ask for stories, not definitions. “Tell me about a time you lost a customer and what you did next” produces signal. “What is good customer service?” produces a rehearsed paragraph anyone can deliver. Past behavior beats hypothetical virtue.

One question, one topic. In a live interview you can untangle a rambling answer with a follow-up. In a recorded answer you cannot, so compound questions (“Tell me about your background, why you applied, and your salary expectations”) produce compound mush. Split them.

Keep the set short. Three to six questions is the sweet spot. Every question you add increases candidate drop-off, and the marginal signal of question seven is close to zero. Pick one opener, two or three role-specific questions, and one closer.

General screening questions (any role)

1. In two minutes, walk me through your background and what led you to apply for this role.
2. What do you know about our company, and what made this role stand out to you?
3. Tell me about a professional accomplishment you are genuinely proud of. What was your specific contribution?
4. Describe a time you made a mistake at work. How did you handle it, and what changed afterwards?
5. What does your ideal working day look like?
6. Tell me about a time you had to learn something completely new under time pressure.
7. What are you looking for in your next role that your current or last role does not offer?
8. Is there anything about your CV that needs context or explanation?

Sales questions

9. Sell me the product you know best. You have 90 seconds.
10. Tell me about the deal you are most proud of winning. What made the difference?
11. Describe a deal you lost that you should have won. What would you do differently?
12. How do you research a prospect before the first conversation? Walk me through it for a company of your choice.
13. A prospect says “we are happy with our current provider.” Record your actual response as if I were the prospect.
14. How do you organize your pipeline and decide where your time goes each week?
15. Tell me about a time you had to deliver on a quota you thought was unrealistic.

Customer support questions

16. A customer writes in furious about a problem that is genuinely our fault. Record the first thing you would say to them, as if they were on the line.
17. Tell me about the most difficult customer interaction you have ever handled. What made it difficult and how did it end?
18. Describe a time you could not solve a customer’s problem. What did you do?
19. How do you decide when to follow the script and when to break it?
20. A customer asks for a feature that does not exist and will not exist. How do you respond?
21. Tell me about a time you turned an unhappy customer into a loyal one.
22. What does a great support experience feel like from the customer’s side? Give a real example you have delivered or received.

Engineering questions

23. Explain a technically complex project you worked on as if I were a non-technical founder. Two minutes.
24. Tell me about the hardest bug you have ever tracked down. Walk me through how you found it.
25. Describe a technical decision you made that you later regretted. What did you learn?
26. How do you decide when code is good enough to ship?
27. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a teammate about a technical approach. How was it resolved?
28. What is a technology or practice you recently changed your mind about, and why?
29. Describe how you approach a codebase you have never seen before when you need to fix something in it.

Marketing questions

30. Pick a campaign or piece of content you created that worked. What was the goal, what did you do, and how did you know it worked?
31. Pick one of our marketing channels or assets you have seen and tell me one thing you would improve and why.
32. Tell me about a campaign that flopped. What was your read on why?
33. How do you decide which marketing metrics actually matter for a given project?
34. Describe how you would explain our product to someone who has never heard of the category. Try it now.
35. Tell me about a time you had to market something with essentially no budget.
36. What is a marketing trend you think is overrated right now, and what would you do instead?

Operations and administrative questions

37. Describe a process you inherited that was broken. How did you fix it, and what happened?
38. Tell me about a time you had to keep several urgent things moving at once. How did you decide what came first?
39. What tools or systems do you personally rely on to stay organized, and how do you use them?
40. Tell me about a time you spotted a problem before anyone else did. What did you do?
41. Describe a situation where you had to enforce a rule or process that a colleague wanted to skip.
42. Tell me about the most repetitive task you have ever had to do well. How did you keep the quality up?
43. If you joined us and found no documented processes at all, where would you start?

Closing questions (any role)

44. What questions would you want to ask us in a live interview?
45. Is there anything important about you that these questions have not given you a chance to show?
46. What would your current or most recent manager say is your biggest strength, and what would they say you are still working on?
47. Where do you want to be professionally in three years, and how does this role fit?
48. What would make you excited to accept an offer from us?
49. Describe the best team you have ever been part of. What made it work?
50. Why should we move you forward to a live interview? Thirty seconds.

Using these questions well

Resist the urge to ask ten of these. Pick one opener, two or three role questions, one closer, and keep total candidate effort under 20 minutes. Score every candidate against the same criteria, decided before you watch the first recording; if you want to go further on fairness, see what is blind review in hiring. And remember what the format is for: these questions decide who gets a live conversation, not who gets the job.

Frequently asked questions

How many questions should a one-way video interview have?

Three to six. Shorter sets get higher completion rates, and the additional signal from longer sets is small. Total candidate effort should stay under 20 minutes.

Should every candidate get the same questions?

Yes. Identical questions in identical conditions are the main fairness advantage of the format, and they are what make side-by-side comparison meaningful.

How long should candidates get to answer each question?

One to three minutes per answer works for almost all screening questions. Tighter limits force clarity; the 90-second and 30-second limits on a few questions above are deliberate.

Can I reuse questions across different jobs?

Openers and closers, yes. Role-specific questions should match the actual role. A question bank that lets you group and reuse questions across jobs saves setup time on every new position.