Strengths-based interview questions: how the method works, 18 questions and a fair way to score them
On this page
- What is a strengths-based interview?
- How is it different from competency-based or behavioral interviewing?
- Which questions show what energizes a candidate?
- Which questions show what comes easily?
- Which questions map to specific strengths?
- What should interviewers listen for?
- How do you score strengths-based answers on a 1–4 scale?
- How do you combine strengths with competencies fairly?
- What are the limits of strengths-based interviewing?
- Questions people ask
Strengths-based interview questions ask what a candidate enjoys, does well and does often, rather than only what they have done before. The UK Civil Service, which documents the method publicly in its Success Profiles: Strengths guidance (updated January 29, 2025, and current as of October 2026), defines strengths as "the things we do regularly, do well and that motivate us," and treats something as a strength only when three elements line up: performance, engagement and use. Typical questions are "What kind of work gives you energy?" and "What do you find easy that others find hard?" Below are the method as the source describes it, eighteen questions with what a strong answer shows and a follow-up probe, what interviewers listen for, a 1–4 scale, and the limits of the approach.
Our competency-based interviewing guide has a one-row comparison of strengths-based interviewing with other methods. This page is the full method and question bank.
What is a strengths-based interview?
The clearest primary description comes from GOV.UK. The Civil Service's Success Profiles framework assesses candidates on up to five elements: ability, technical skills, behaviors, strengths and experience. Not every element is used for every job; the job advert says which ones apply. For strengths, the guidance sets out three tests:
- Performance. The person can do the activity to a high level of capability.
- Engagement. They feel motivated, enthused and empowered while doing it.
- Use. They do it regularly and as often as they can.
Something you do well but find draining is not a strength in this model; it is closer to a learned behavior. Something you love but rarely do or do poorly is not one either. The Civil Service publishes a dictionary of 36 named strengths, from Adaptable and Analytical to Team player and Visionary, each with a one-line definition and mapped to the Civil Service behaviors. The guidance says strengths are not defined by job grade, and that they can be assessed through interviews, recorded video interviews, situational strengths tests, simulations and personality tests.
Two details of the GOV.UK guidance shape how the interview runs. It tells candidates there are no right or wrong answers to strengths questions, and it tells them not to rehearse, because the interviewer wants their initial response. The candidate overview adds that interviewers may ask about interests and what the candidate enjoys doing, to understand their strengths and preferred way of working.
How is it different from competency-based or behavioral interviewing?
| Approach | Typical question | What it tells you | Main weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Behavioral or competency-based | "Tell me about a time you resolved a conflict." | What the candidate did in a past situation | Favors people with relevant experience and well-practiced stories |
| Situational | "What would you do if two colleagues stopped speaking?" | Judgment in a job-like dilemma | Tells you what they would do, not what they will do |
| Strengths-based | "What kind of problem do you enjoy getting stuck into?" | What energizes the candidate and what they do naturally and often | Self-report; easy to confuse enthusiasm with ability |
Strengths questions suit candidates with little work history to draw on, such as graduates and apprentices, because they do not depend on having held a similar job. See how to interview new graduates for a full early-careers loop and what is a behavioral interview for the format you will usually combine them with.
Which questions show what energizes a candidate?
| Question | A strong answer shows | Follow-up probe |
|---|---|---|
| 1. What kind of task gives you energy, even at the end of a long day? | A specific task, a recent example and a reason it engages them. | "When did you last do that? What happened?" |
| 2. Describe a good day at work or study. What made it good? | Concrete activities rather than conditions such as "a nice team". | "Which part of that day would you repeat tomorrow?" |
| 3. What do you look forward to in a working week? | A recurring activity they choose, not just the weekend. | "How often do you get to do it now?" |
| 4. Which tasks do you tend to put off, and why? | Honest self-knowledge about what drains them, and how they still get it done. | "How do you make sure it gets done anyway?" |
| 5. If you could hand one part of your current role to someone else, what would it be? | A clear choice with a reason, and awareness of how it affects others. | "What would you do with the time instead?" |
| 6. When have you lost track of time while working? | A specific activity and situation, described in detail. | "What were you doing at the moment you noticed the time?" |
Which questions show what comes easily?
| Question | A strong answer shows | Follow-up probe |
|---|---|---|
| 7. What do colleagues or classmates come to you for? | A pattern others recognize, with an example. | "Who asked most recently, and what for?" |
| 8. What do you find easy that others seem to find hard? | A specific skill and evidence that others struggle with it. | "How do you know it is harder for them?" |
| 9. What have you picked up faster than the people around you? | A concrete learning example and what helped. | "What did you do differently from them?" |
| 10. What do you do well but not particularly enjoy? | Separates a learned behavior from a strength, with honesty. | "How much of your week does it take?" |
Question 10 is the most useful of the set. It shows whether the candidate can tell the difference between being good at something and being energized by it, which is the distinction the whole method rests on.
Which questions map to specific strengths?
Pick the two to four strengths the job most needs from the Civil Service dictionary or your own framework, and ask one question for each. The strength names below are from the GOV.UK dictionary.
| Question | Strength | A strong answer shows | Follow-up probe |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11. How do you feel about checking work for errors, yours or someone else's? | Precise | Genuine interest in accuracy and a habit they use without being asked. | "What was the last error you caught?" |
| 12. Do you enjoy explaining complicated things? What was the last thing you explained? | Explainer | Adjusts the explanation to the listener and enjoys the moment it lands. | "How did you know they understood?" |
| 13. When something breaks or goes wrong, what is your first instinct? | Problem solver | Moves toward the problem with a method, and describes a recent case. | "What did you try first, and why?" |
| 14. How do you go about getting to know new people you will work with? | Relationship builder | Deliberate habits and an example of a relationship that lasted. | "Who is the most recent person you got to know that way?" |
| 15. How do you feel the day after something has gone wrong? | Resilient | Recovers, reflects and uses the lesson, with a real example. | "What did you do differently next time?" |
| 16. Do you find yourself changing how things are done? What did you change most recently? | Improver | Notices better ways unprompted and follows through. | "How did others react to the change?" |
| 17. What do you enjoy about helping a customer or client, if anything? | Service focused | Specific satisfaction in solving someone else's problem. | "Tell me about the last person you helped." |
| 18. What have you taught yourself recently, outside anything you had to learn? | Learner | Self-directed learning, how they went about it and what they did with it. | "How did you decide what to learn next?" |
What should interviewers listen for?
Listen for the three elements from the GOV.UK model, in the content of the answer rather than the way it is delivered:
- Performance: a concrete example of doing the activity well, with a result.
- Engagement: specific detail and clear reasons why the activity matters to them. Score the substance of what they say, not a louder voice.
- Use: frequency and choice. They do it often, and they look for chances to do it.
Do not score smiling, speed, volume or animated delivery. Reserved candidates, many neurodivergent candidates and people from cultures that value modesty show engagement differently, and a second-language speaker may answer more slowly. GOV.UK lists examples of reasonable adjustments, such as extra time for a test or interview, and the same principle applies here; see our guide to neurodivergent interview accommodations. Keep questions about interests anchored to work or study, so they do not stray into religion, family or health, which our illegal interview questions guide covers.
How do you score strengths-based answers on a 1–4 scale?
| Score | Anchor |
|---|---|
| 1 — No evidence | Generic claims ("I'm a people person") with no example, or the activity is something the candidate avoids or rarely does. |
| 2 — Limited | Evidence of one or two elements only: does it well but finds it draining, or enjoys it but has little evidence of doing it well or often. |
| 3 — Solid | All three elements: a concrete recent example of doing it well, specific reasons it engages them, and evidence they do it regularly or seek it out. |
| 4 — Strong | Everything at 3 across several contexts, plus they actively shape their work to use it and can describe when the strength overplays or needs balancing. |
Score each strength separately. A candidate can score 4 on Explainer and 2 on Precise, and that profile is useful information for the hiring manager.
How do you combine strengths with competencies fairly?
The GOV.UK guidance says strengths may be assessed alongside the other elements to give a more rounded picture. Treat them the same way in your own process:
- Keep separate ratings. Score strengths, behaviors, skills and experience separately; do not blend them into one impression.
- Agree weights before the first interview. As an example only, a graduate scheme might weight strengths and ability more heavily, while an experienced specialist role might weight technical skill and experience.
- Do not let strengths override a must-have. Enthusiasm for analysis does not replace the ability to do the analysis; test that with a work sample.
- Ask every candidate the same questions and score against anchors written in advance, ideally before discussing candidates with other interviewers.
What are the limits of strengths-based interviewing?
- Limited published evidence. The GOV.UK guidance describes the method but does not publish data on how well strengths interviews predict job performance, and we could not find a peer-reviewed validity study of the method that we could open and check. Treat strengths as one input, not a replacement for structured behavioral questions or work samples.
- Self-report. Candidates tell you what they enjoy, and coached candidates know what employers want to hear. The follow-up probes asking for the most recent example are the main defense.
- Enthusiasm bias. Interviewers can mistake an outgoing personality for engagement. Anchors that score detail and frequency, not delivery, reduce this.
- Fit drift. "Energized by the same things I am" can become a proxy for similarity. Our guide to assessing values without culture-fit bias applies here too.
Strengths questions work best inside a structured process: a short strengths section of three to five questions, a behavioral section, and a work sample or assessment center exercise for skill. For motivation more broadly, see interview questions for motivation.
Questions people ask
What is a strengths-based interview?
A strengths-based interview asks what a candidate enjoys, does well and does often, rather than only what they have done before. The UK Civil Service, which documents the method in its Success Profiles framework on GOV.UK, judges a strength on three elements: performance (doing it to a high level), engagement (feeling motivated when doing it) and use (doing it regularly). Questions sound like "What kind of work gives you energy?" and "What do you find easy that others find hard?"
What is the difference between strengths-based and competency-based interview questions?
Competency-based questions ask for past examples of a behavior, such as "Tell me about a time you resolved a conflict," and score what the candidate did. Strengths-based questions ask what the candidate enjoys and does naturally, such as "What do colleagues come to you for?", and look for energy and frequency as well as ability. The two can be combined: the UK Civil Service's Success Profiles can assess strengths alongside behaviors, experience, ability and technical skills.
How do you score a strengths-based interview answer fairly?
Score the content against anchors written in advance: a concrete recent example of doing the activity well, specific reasons it engages the candidate, and evidence they do it regularly or seek it out. Do not score volume, smiling or animated delivery, because reserved, neurodivergent or second-language candidates show engagement differently. Score each strength separately and combine it with the other elements using weights agreed before interviews start.
Should candidates prepare for strengths-based questions?
GOV.UK's Success Profiles guidance tells candidates not to rehearse answers, because interviewers want their first response, and suggests reflecting on their personal strengths and preferred ways of working instead. Interviewers should still offer reasonable adjustments, such as extra time, to candidates who need them.