Interview questions prompt: free ChatGPT template
Updated · By Robert Breen
Use this before you interview anyone. When every candidate gets the same job-related questions, you can compare answers fairly and your notes hold up later. Asking an AI for "interview questions for a dispatcher" gets you a generic list ("What's your greatest weakness?"). This prompt ties every question to one of your must-haves, tells you what a strong answer sounds like, and gives you a job-related question to ask in place of topics that have no place in an interview.
The prompt
Copy it into ChatGPT (or Claude, Gemini or Copilot) and replace every [BLANK] with your own details. It uses the four parts from Prompt Writing 101: Role, Context, Task and Format.
Role: You are a hiring manager at [BUSINESS] preparing a structured interview: the same questions, in the same order, for every candidate. Context: The role is [JOB TITLE]. The must-haves are: [MUST HAVES]. A hard moment that comes up in this job: [HARD MOMENT]. The interview lasts [INTERVIEW LENGTH]. Stick to job-related points. Don't ask about, infer or mention age, race, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, disability, health, family status or any other protected characteristic. Task: Write two questions for each must-have: one about a real past situation and one practical scenario based on the hard moment or the daily work. For each, say what a strong answer includes and give one follow-up for a vague answer. Then list topics interviewers should not raise and, for each, a job-related question to ask every candidate instead. Format: One table per must-have with the columns Question, Strong answer includes, Follow-up. Then a two-column table called Instead of asking: Topic, Ask every candidate. Fit the questions to the interview length and say roughly how many minutes each must-have gets.
Fill in the blanks
[BUSINESS]- Your business name and what you do.
[JOB TITLE]- The role you're interviewing for.
[MUST HAVES]- The three to five requirements from your job description. These are what you'll score on later.
[HARD MOMENT]- A real situation that separates good from great in this job. It makes the scenario questions specific.
[INTERVIEW LENGTH]- How long you have, such as 30 or 45 minutes.
Example, filled in
A made-up example from the free lesson Build an AI Estimate Writer for Your HVAC Company. Cedar Ridge Heating & Air is the made-up HVAC company in the HVAC lessons. It's hiring a dispatcher to run the phones and the techs' schedule.
Role: You are a hiring manager at Cedar Ridge Heating & Air, a residential heating and cooling company, preparing a structured interview: the same questions, in the same order, for every candidate. Context: The role is dispatcher. The must-haves are: handling a busy phone line, scheduling six techs across a day, calming upset customers, and keeping job notes accurate in scheduling software. A hard moment that comes up in this job: a family calls with no air conditioning on the hottest day of the year and every tech is booked. The interview lasts 30 minutes. Stick to job-related points. Don't ask about, infer or mention age, race, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, disability, health, family status or any other protected characteristic. Task: Write two questions for each must-have: one about a real past situation and one practical scenario based on the hard moment or the daily work. For each, say what a strong answer includes and give one follow-up for a vague answer. Then list topics interviewers should not raise and, for each, a job-related question to ask every candidate instead. Format: One table per must-have with the columns Question, Strong answer includes, Follow-up. Then a two-column table called Instead of asking: Topic, Ask every candidate. Fit the questions to the interview length and say roughly how many minutes each must-have gets.
What a good answer looks like
- Questions you can only answer well with real experience, such as "Walk me through a day when the schedule fell apart by 10 a.m. What did you change first?"
- Strong-answer notes that name observable things (gave the customer a time window, told the tech before the customer) rather than "good communicator."
- An Instead of asking table that swaps "Do you have kids?" for "This job starts at 7:30 a.m. Can you work that schedule?" asked of everyone.
- A plan that fits in 30 minutes, with time left for the candidate's questions.
How to check it before you use it
An AI draft can sound right and still say something you never told it. Use the habit from the Reply Faster lesson: check every promise, name, date and number against what you gave it before anything goes out.
- Match every question to a must-have. Cut any question that doesn't test one of them, however interesting it sounds.
- Read each strong-answer note and ask whether two interviewers would agree on it. Rewrite the vague ones.
- Check the Instead of asking table with HR or your hiring policy; the rules vary by place.
- Print one copy and use it for every candidate, so the scores you record later are comparable.
Why this prompt works
The Context names the must-haves and the hard moment, so the questions are about this job and not jobs in general. The same must-haves become the rows of your interview scorecard after the interview, which is how the interview scorecard prompt can score each candidate on the same things.
Practice it in the free lesson
Turn an Interview Debrief into a Scorecard and a Candidate Follow-Up (Recruiting & HR): Turn the transcript of an interview panel's debrief into a scorecard against the role's must-haves, the decisions, action items with owners and dates, and a follow-up email to the candidate. You do every step yourself in a practice copy of ChatGPT, and nothing touches your real accounts.
Also useful: Prompt Writing 101: Role, Context, Task, Format
Terms used here
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