Interview questions for integrity: 13 questions, probes and a 1–4 scale

Interview questions for integrity work best when they ask about a specific moment of pressure, such as a target, a request from someone senior or a shortcut that would have gone unnoticed, and what the candidate actually did. Questions like "have you ever stolen from an employer?" mostly measure who is comfortable saying no. Below are thirteen questions, eight behavioral and five situational, each with follow-up probes, plus sample strong and weak answers, a 1–4 anchored scale and the mistakes that make integrity the easiest competency to score on gut feel.

Integrity sits close to two other pages. Interview questions for accountability covers owning results and commitments; this page covers honesty and consistency when there is a reason not to be honest. And if you suspect a candidate is being untruthful in the interview itself, that is a different problem with its own playbook: how to handle a candidate who lies in an interview.

Integrity, defined as something you can observe

Definition: integrity is telling the truth and acting consistently with stated rules and commitments when doing otherwise would be easier, more profitable or unnoticed. An interview cannot observe that directly, but it can surface three things:

• Recognizing the pressure. Seeing that a situation was an ethical or honesty question, rather than a purely practical one.
• Acting on it, at some cost. Describing what they did and what it cost them, such as a missed target, an awkward conversation or a lost deal.
• Consistency under follow-up. The account holds together when you ask for detail, and matches how they describe other situations in the same interview.

What integrity is not: sharing your values, holding strong opinions about ethics, or sounding earnest. Those are style. The interview evidence is what someone did in a situation that tested them.

Eight behavioral questions, with follow-up probes

1. Tell me about a time you were under pressure to hit a number and saw a way to make it look better than it was.
   Probes: What exactly was the option? What did you do, and what happened to the number?
2. Describe a time someone senior asked you to do something you were not comfortable with.
   Probes: What did you say to them, in your own words? What happened afterwards between you?
3. Tell me about a time you told a client or customer something they did not want to hear.
   Probes: What would have been the easier thing to say? What did the honest answer cost you?
4. Tell me about a rule or policy you followed even though you thought it was wrong.
   Probes: What did you do about the rule itself? Where is the line for you between following and challenging a rule?
5. Describe a time you noticed a colleague doing something that was against policy.
   Probes: How did you check you had understood it correctly? What did you do first?
6. Tell me about a time you were given credit for something that was not entirely your work.
   Probes: What did you say at the time? Who else knew?
7. Describe a promise you made to someone at work that became inconvenient to keep.
   Probes: Did you keep it? If not, how did you handle telling them?
8. Tell me about a time you had access to information you should not have used.
   Probes: What did you do with it? Who did you tell?

Candidates in junior roles may have fewer workplace examples. School, volunteering and part-time work are fair sources for questions 3, 6 and 7; score the behavior, not the setting.

Five situational questions

9. "It's the last day of the quarter. A customer verbally commits to a deal but won't sign until Monday. Your manager suggests booking it today. What do you do?"
   Probes: What would you say to your manager? What if they insist?
10. "You find out a report your team has been sending to leadership for months uses a definition that flatters the results. Nobody has noticed. What do you do?"
    Probes: Who do you raise it with first? What do you propose for the reports already sent?
11. "A candidate you are recruiting for asks whether the team has had high turnover. It has. The hiring manager has asked you not to mention it. How do you answer?"
    Probes: What can you say truthfully without breaching the manager's trust? What would you say to the manager?
12. "A friend at a competitor offers to share their pricing sheet informally. What do you say?"
    Probes: What if your manager would find it useful? Would you tell anyone the offer was made?
13. "You realize an expense you claimed last month was partly personal. The amount is small. What do you do?"
    Probes: Does the amount change your answer? Who would you tell?

Situational answers are cheap to give, since everyone knows the right answer to question 13. They earn their place when you follow up on the hard part: what the candidate would say to a manager who pushes back, and what they would do if doing the right thing had a visible cost.

What strong and weak answers sound like

Illustrative answers to question 2, written to show the contrast.

Weak: "Integrity is really important to me, so I'd never do anything unethical. If a manager asked me to, I'd just refuse. I've always worked for companies with strong values, so it hasn't really come up."

The weak answer is a statement of values with no situation behind it. It may be completely sincere, but it gives you nothing to score. Ask again for a smaller example, such as a request that felt uncomfortable rather than clearly unethical; most people have one.

Strong: "My director asked me to backdate a candidate's start date by a week so it would count in the previous quarter's placement numbers. I told him I couldn't change the date in the system because it fed payroll and the client's invoice, and that if the quarter mattered I could show the placement as signed with the start date after. He wasn't happy and the quarter came in short. A week later he used my version of the report himself."

The strong answer names a specific request, the reason the candidate gave, an alternative that met the legitimate need, and the cost they accepted. It is also detailed enough that it would hold up to a reference check, which is worth doing for roles where integrity is critical; see the reference check template.

A 1–4 anchored rating scale for integrity

Note the label on 1. For most competencies a 1 means "no evidence"; for integrity, "no evidence" and "evidence of a problem" are different findings. Record them differently, with the lack of evidence as "not assessed", so a debrief does not treat a candidate who had no example the same as one who described falsifying a report.

Common interviewer mistakes with integrity

• Scoring earnestness. A candidate who speaks warmly about honesty is not thereby honest. Score the example, and treat a values speech with no example as "not assessed".
• Reading nervousness or lack of eye contact as evasion. These are unreliable signs of lying and vary widely by culture and neurotype. Score what the candidate said and whether it held together, not how they looked saying it.
• Asking about protected or regulated topics. Criminal history, debt and similar topics are regulated in many places and usually belong in a separate process, if at all. See ban-the-box rules for interview questions before touching them.
• Rewarding indiscretion. A candidate who names a former colleague and details their misconduct may be showing a problem, not a strength. Integrity includes discretion.
• Confusing values alignment with integrity. Whether a candidate shares your company's values is a separate question, and a risky one for bias; how to assess values without culture fit bias covers that separately.

Integrity scores are the ones most likely to be challenged later, by a panel member or by the candidate. Interview Signal keeps the candidate's own words behind every score on the scorecard, so a rating of 1 or 4 points back to exactly what was said rather than to an interviewer's impression.