Interview Questions to Ask a Foreign Candidate

Interview questions to ask international candidates

Do you have international working experience? If so, what was your experience like?

• Get the big question out of the way early and allow your candidate the chance to talk about their international working experience, or why they desire to work in a new market.
• This allows you the opportunity to really mine your candidate for information on what drives them, what they value in a workplace and what dreams they have regarding experiencing new job opportunities.

What is your ideal international location to work and why do you want to work there?

• A simple, direct question that is designed to get into the meat of a candidate’s ideal working situation.
• This question allows you the chance to quiz your candidate on whether they’re moving for the right reasons, and whether they’ve researched building a career in a new city or country.

How much do you know about your ideal location/city/country?

• A natural follow-on question that gets to grips with your candidate’s local market knowledge.
• Urge your candidate to talk not just about work, but about their connection to the local culture and their interest in the area - you’ll get a better understanding of your candidate’s values and “ideals”.

When can you start?

• A vital question when considering the administrative efforts of relocation, or setting up remote work functionality ahead of relocation.

Classic interview questions that still help you hire the right person

Do a candidate SWOT analysis.

• Your first port of call as an interview should be a candidate SWOT - ask your candidate to describe their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities (why this job is an opportunity for them) and Threats (what’s the main barrier to their career growth and what do they want to overcome by moving and working abroad?).
• Use this as a catch-all introductory question to get a broader understanding of your candidate’s attitudes, desires, career to date, and plans for the future.

Why should we hire you?

• A simple but targeted question that should provide you with more granular detail on exactly what the candidate values in themselves, and where they feel their strengths lie.

What are your career goals and can we help you reach them?

• Whilst it’s always nice to know what your candidate has in mind for their tech career (and you may find you get incredibly varied responses), this question is designed to help your candidate visualize your workplace as somewhere they can meet their career goals.

What style of work do you prefer?

• This is integral in our new remote working norm and will help you figure out if your candidate matches your work culture and project management style.
• Styles of work in this regard means how this specific candidate works concerning things like synchronous or asynchronous work; micro- or macro-management styles; feedback-oriented or more distant project analysis preferred, and so on.
• You can then build a profile of how this particular person will work in your team and how they connect to management and decision-makers.

Tell me about your work to date, and describe your local recruitment/employment environment.

This provides an opportunity for your interviewee to break down their current working environment, the things they like (and don’t like) about it, and why your opportunity represents progress for them.