You have three interviews scheduled this week. You need questions that actually reveal whether these candidates can do the job. These ChatGPT prompts for interviews will get you prepped faster than you thought possible.
ChatGPT can help you prep for interviews faster than you thought possible. Not generic questions you could find anywhere, but role-specific questions tailored to what you actually need to evaluate.
These five prompts cover the full interview process: generating questions from a job description, creating behavioral questions for specific competencies, building a scoring rubric, prepping resume-specific questions, and writing candidate follow-ups. Each one saves you time while producing better results than starting from scratch.
Copy them, paste them, fill in the brackets, and get back to your actual work.
Table of Contents
Prompt 1: Generate Interview Questions from a Job Description
The fastest way to get relevant interview questions is to feed ChatGPT the actual job description. It pulls out the key requirements and generates questions that probe whether candidates can actually do what the role demands.
The Prompt:
I'm interviewing candidates for the following role.
Generate 10 interview questions that will help me assess whether candidates have the skills and experience required.
Mix technical questions with questions about how they approach work.
Here's the job description: [Paste full job description]Why This Works:
Generic interview question lists waste everyone’s time. You end up asking about “your greatest weakness” when you really need to know if they can handle the specific technical challenges of this role. This prompt forces relevance by starting with what the job actually requires.
Make It Better:
Add context about your team: “This person will be joining a team of 4 engineers working on our payment processing system. We value independent problem-solvers who communicate proactively.” The more context you give, the more targeted the questions become.
Prompt 2: Create Behavioral Questions for Specific Competencies
Behavioral questions reveal how candidates actually handled real situations. But writing good ones is harder than it looks. You need questions that probe the right competencies without being so obvious that candidates just tell you what you want to hear.
The Prompt:
I need to assess candidates for these specific competencies: [list 3-5 competencies, e.g., "conflict resolution, technical decision-making under uncertainty, cross-functional collaboration, mentoring junior team members"]
Generate 2 behavioral interview questions for each competency. Use the "Tell me about a time when..." format.
Make the questions specific enough to get real examples, not rehearsed answers.
Include follow-up probing questions for each.Why This Works:
Past behavior predicts future behavior. But only if you ask about the right behaviors. This prompt lets you focus on exactly the competencies that matter for this role and this team, rather than generic leadership questions that apply to any job.
Make It Better:
Tell ChatGPT about challenges specific to your environment: “Our team deals with frequent priority changes from stakeholders,” or “We have a lot of legacy code that requires patience to work with.” You’ll get questions that probe how candidates handle your actual situation. If you’re assessing how candidates handle conflict or deliver tough feedback, the same competency-based approach works for difficult employee conversations with your current team.
Prompt 3: Build a Scoring Rubric for Consistent Evaluation
Interviewing three candidates for the same role? Without a rubric, you’ll struggle to compare them fairly. You’ll remember the last interview best and make decisions based on gut feeling rather than evidence.
The Prompt:
Create an interview scoring rubric for a [job title] role.
The key competencies I need to evaluate are: [list competencies]
For each competency, define what a 1 (poor), 3 (acceptable), and 5 (excellent) response looks like.
Include specific indicators I should listen for.
Format this as a table I can print and use during interviews.Why This Works:
A rubric forces you to define what good looks like before you start interviewing. It reduces bias, makes comparisons easier, and gives you documentation to reference when making the final decision. It also helps when other interviewers are involved since everyone evaluates against the same criteria. This same structured evaluation approach works when writing performance reviews.
Make It Better:
Weight the competencies based on importance: “Technical skills should count for 40%, collaboration for 30%, communication for 20%, and culture fit for 10%.” This prevents you from overvaluing something that matters less for actual job success.
Prompt 4: Prep Resume-Specific Questions
Every resume has gaps, vague descriptions, and claims worth probing. But finding them takes time. ChatGPT can scan a resume and flag exactly what you should dig into.
The Prompt:
Review this resume for a [job title] position.
Identify: (1) claims that need verification or deeper probing, (2) gaps or inconsistencies I should ask about, (3) experiences most relevant to this role that I should explore further.
Then generate 5 specific questions I should ask this candidate based on their resume.
[Paste resume text without names]Why This Works:
Candidates craft resumes to look good. Your job is to get beneath the surface. This prompt spots things you might miss when you’re skimming resumes between meetings. It catches vague accomplishments like “improved team efficiency” that need actual numbers, or job transitions that don’t quite add up.
Make It Better:
Include the job description too so ChatGPT can focus on the most relevant experience: “Here’s what I’m hiring for: [job description]. Now here’s the candidate’s resume: [resume]. What should I probe given the match between these?”
Prompt 5: Write Candidate Follow-Up Emails
The interview is done. Now you need to send a rejection, request another round, or make an offer. Some of these emails are not fun to write, but they all matter. Candidates remember how they were treated.
The Prompt:
Write a [rejection / next round invitation / offer] email for a candidate I interviewed for a [job title] position.
Context: [Add relevant details, e.g., "They were strong technically but we're concerned about culture fit" or "They're our top candidate and we want to move quickly" or "They made it to final round but we went with someone with more experience"]
Tone should be professional, respectful, and [warm / direct / encouraging].
Keep it under 150 words.Why This Works:
Rejection emails are awkward. Offer emails need to convey excitement without overselling. Either way, you probably put this off longer than you should. This prompt gets you a solid draft in seconds that you can personalize and send. Candidates don’t sit wondering what happened.
Make It Better:
For rejections, ask for a version that leaves the door open: “Include a line encouraging them to apply for future roles if genuinely appropriate.” For offers, ask ChatGPT to emphasize specific things the candidate mentioned caring about during the interview.
Tips for Better Results
Give context about your company and team. “We’re a 50-person startup in fintech” produces different questions than “We’re a Fortune 500 retail company.” ChatGPT can’t tailor its output if it doesn’t know your environment.
Specify the seniority level. Questions for a senior director should be different from questions for an entry-level coordinator. Say it explicitly: “This is a senior role requiring 8+ years of experience” or “This is an entry-level position for new graduates.”
Ask for follow-up probes. The best interview questions come with follow-ups that dig deeper. Add “Include 2-3 follow-up questions I can use to probe further based on their initial response” to any prompt.
Edit everything. ChatGPT gives you a starting point, not a final product. Read through the questions and adjust anything that doesn’t fit your style or your specific situation. Add your own follow-ups based on what you know about the role.
Save your best prompts. Once you refine a prompt that works well for your hiring process, save it somewhere you can reuse it. You’ll hire again, and next time you won’t start from scratch.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Using candidate names. When pasting resumes or asking for help with follow-up emails, remove or replace the candidate’s name. Use “the candidate” or a placeholder like “[Name]” instead. There’s no reason to feed personal information into an AI tool, and it’s a good privacy habit to build.
Using questions without understanding them. If you don’t know what a good answer looks like, don’t ask the question. ChatGPT can help you generate questions, but you need to know what you’re evaluating.
Asking ChatGPT to make the hiring decision. AI can help you prepare. It shouldn’t tell you who to hire. Keep the judgment calls where they belong: with you. For more on keeping AI in its proper role, see 5 ways managers misuse AI.
Skipping the rubric. Great questions are useless if you don’t have a consistent way to evaluate answers. Build the rubric before you start interviewing, not after.
Ignoring legal considerations. ChatGPT doesn’t know your local employment law. Avoid any questions about age, family status, religion, health, or other protected characteristics. Review your questions for legal compliance before using them.
Start Using These ChatGPT Prompts for Interviews
Interviewing well takes preparation. Most managers don’t prepare enough because they don’t have time. These prompts close that gap.
You can generate targeted questions from a job description in under a minute. Build a scoring rubric in two minutes. Prep for a specific candidate in three minutes. That’s less time than you’d spend staring at a blank page trying to remember what to ask.
Better prep means better interviews. Better interviews mean better hires. Better hires mean a better team.
Copy the prompts. Try them before your next interview. See what works.
Your candidates will notice the difference. So will you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use ChatGPT to screen resumes before interviews?
Yes, but with caution. ChatGPT can summarize resumes and flag areas to probe, which saves time. However, don’t let it make screening decisions for you. AI can miss context that matters and may reflect biases present in its training data. Use it to prepare, not to filter candidates in or out.
How many interview questions should I prepare?
For a typical 45-60 minute interview, prepare 8-10 questions. You won’t get through all of them since good follow-up conversations take time. Having extras means you’re never stuck, and you can skip questions if the candidate already answered them naturally during the conversation.
Should I use the same questions for every candidate?
Use the same core questions for consistency and fair comparison. This is where a scoring rubric helps. But also prepare 2-3 candidate-specific questions based on their resume. The combination gives you both consistency across candidates and depth into each individual’s experience.