Six question sets for employers, from core and behavioral diagnosis to live scenarios and a manager set, each question paired with why it is worth asking and what a strong answer sounds like. Built for small businesses without HR. Download as DOCX.
The first time I hired for problem solving I asked the question everybody asks: tell me about a problem you solved. All four candidates gave me a clean story with a happy ending, and I hired the one who told it best. He was good at fixing things and poor at working out what was actually wrong, which turned out to be the expensive half of the job.
That is the trap in this competency. Solving is visible and diagnosing is not, so an interview built around solutions selects for people who can describe one. The questions that actually separate candidates ask what the problem turned out to be, what the candidate first believed, and how they found out they were wrong.
At FirstHR we build for employers hiring without an HR department, where the owner runs the interview alone and no panel is there to catch a miss. This page gives you six question sets, each question paired with a stated reason it earns its place and what a strong answer sounds like, plus a 1 to 5 scorecard. The rest of the hiring templates cover the job description and offer letter when you get that far.
TL;DR
Good problem solving interview questions ask how a candidate found the problem, not how they fixed it. Ask for a real recent failure, what they first believed was wrong, and the evidence that proved them wrong. Score diagnosis, evidence, and knowing when to stop, never the volume of problems described. Download six question sets and a 1 to 5 scorecard as DOCX.
What Problem Solving Questions Actually Test
Problem solving questions test diagnosis, not repair. Repair is the visible part and the part every candidate prepares, which is why the open prompt tell me about a problem you solved produces a rehearsed answer from everyone and separates nobody.
Three behaviors sit underneath a strong answer. First, defining the problem before attacking it, including checking whether the stated problem is the real one. Second, reasoning from evidence, meaning they can say what they checked and what it ruled out. Third, knowing when to stop: when to ask, when to escalate, when a fix is verified.
The third behavior is the one small employers underweight and then live with daily. A candidate who diagnoses well but never asks will spend three days on something you could answer in a sentence, and the reverse arrives at your desk hourly. It is closely related to how a candidate reasons in general, but it is narrower and easier to score.
Which Question Set Should You Use?
Pick two or three sets that match how the role fails, not all six. A bookkeeper and a support technician both solve problems, but the back-office failure is quiet and monthly, while the frontline failure happens live, in front of a customer, with nobody senior reachable.
Core Questions
Start here, any role
Six questions that work for any position, built to surface how a candidate found the problem rather than how they fixed it.
Behavioral: Diagnosis and Root Cause
Real past examples
STAR questions about recurring failures, a wrong theory, and a quick fix that came back. Past behavior is the strongest single predictor here.
Situational: No Playbook
For thin resumes
Scenarios for early-career candidates or a second read on judgment. Score the criterion behind the choice, never the option they pick.
Method, Evidence, Asking
Is there a system?
The first move, the limit before asking for help, the write-up, and the verification step. These questions catch borrowed vocabulary.
Managers and Team Leads
Choosing the team’s problems
For roles that decide what the team works on: delegation, repeat failures, firefighting, and problems deliberately left alone.
Scorecard (1 to 5 Rubric)
Score, do not guess
Six scoring areas plus a red-flag checklist, with space for quoted evidence, so the decision rests on what was said.
Match the Set to How the Role Fails
For back-office and administrative roles, weight the diagnosis and method questions, since the risk is the same error repeating because nobody traced it. For customer-facing and frontline roles, weight the live scenarios. For anyone who decides what the team works on, the manager set is not optional, and it pairs naturally with your operations manager or customer service representative job description. Whatever you pick, ask the same set of every candidate.
6 Question Sets to Download
Download all six as one Word document or copy individual sets. Every question comes with a stated reason it is worth asking, and every set closes with what a strong answer sounds like and what a weak one sounds like. The sixth file is the scorecard and red-flag checklist.
Download All Question Sets and the Scorecard
Five question sets plus a 1 to 5 scoring rubric, with reasons and answer guidance. All in one DOCX.
Set 1: Core Problem Solving Questions
Six questions that work for any role, built to surface how the candidate found the problem rather than how they fixed it. Start here even if you use nothing else on this page.
Core Problem Solving Questions (Any Role)
PROBLEM SOLVING INTERVIEW: CORE QUESTION SET
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK, AND WHY EACH ONE EARNS ITS PLACE
1. Walk me through the last thing that broke on your watch. How did you find
the cause?
Why ask it: candidates rehearse the fix and almost never rehearse the
diagnosis. Diagnosis is the half of the job you are actually buying.
2. What did you first think was wrong, and how did you find out you were wrong?
Why ask it: it requires the candidate to have held a wrong belief and
noticed. A sanded-down story rarely survives this question.
3. When you are stuck, what do you do in the first hour?
Why ask it: tests whether there is a method underneath the persistence, and
predicts how they behave on day three with nobody to ask.
4. Tell me about a problem you decided not to solve.
Why ask it: judgment about which problems deserve effort is scarcer than the
ability to solve them, and a small team cannot afford someone who fixes
everything.
5. How do you know a fix is actually done?
Why ask it: separates people who stop when the complaint stops from people
who confirm the cause is gone. The difference arrives later as repeat work.
6. Tell me about a time the obvious fix was the wrong fix.
Why ask it: reveals whether they check the premise or accept the problem as
it was handed to them.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER SOUNDS LIKE
A strong answer separates the symptom from the cause without being prompted.
It names what the candidate checked, in what order, and what that ruled out.
It contains at least one wrong theory that got discarded, described without
defensiveness, and it ends with a verification step rather than with the
complaint going quiet.
A weak answer starts at the solution and treats the cause as though it were
obvious from the first minute. Nothing was ruled out, nothing was checked, and
the candidate cannot say what would have changed their mind.
NOTES
[Capture the symptom, the first theory, what killed it, and the verification.]
Set 2: Behavioral Questions on Diagnosis and Root Cause
Real past examples: a recurring failure traced to its cause, a wrong theory, a quick fix that came back. Score these with STAR and treat a candidate who was never wrong with polite suspicion.
Behavioral Questions: Diagnosis and Root Cause
PROBLEM SOLVING INTERVIEW: BEHAVIORAL QUESTIONS
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
Ask for a real past example. Score with STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result.
QUESTIONS TO ASK, AND WHY EACH ONE EARNS ITS PLACE
1. Tell me about a recurring problem you traced to its actual cause.
Why ask it: recurring problems are the expensive ones, and most people treat
the symptom every month rather than spending a day on the cause.
2. Describe a time you were wrong about what was causing something.
Why ask it: people who cannot recall being wrong either have thin experience
or edit the record. Both matter.
3. Tell me about a problem you solved with incomplete information.
Why ask it: at a small company the information is always incomplete. Waiting
for certainty is the most common failure mode you will hire.
4. Walk me through a time you had to fix something you did not build.
Why ask it: tests how they orient in an unfamiliar system, which is exactly
what their first month with you will be.
5. Describe a quick fix you made that came back later.
Why ask it: honest answers here are rare and valuable. Listen for whether
they knew it was temporary and told someone.
6. Tell me about a problem you escalated. How did you decide it was time?
Why ask it: the decision rule matters more than the escalation. People
without a rule either never escalate or escalate everything.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER SOUNDS LIKE
The Situation is specific and dated. The Action is something the candidate
personally did, in the first person, rather than what the team concluded. The
Result includes a check: the failure was reproduced and no longer reproduces,
a number moved, or the person who reported it confirmed the problem was gone.
The best answers name the cost of the investigation, not only the benefit of
the fix. Someone who says a three-hour diagnosis saved a weekly hour of rework
is thinking about the business, not just the puzzle.
Red flag: a story where the candidate was right immediately, alone, and the
problem never came back. That is a presentation, not an investigation.
NOTES
[Capture the wrong theory, the evidence that broke it, and the verification.]
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Set 3: Situational Questions for Problems With No Playbook
Scenarios for early-career candidates or as a second read on judgment. The unreachable-manager prompt and the two-plausible-causes prompt are the two that earn their keep most often.
Situational Questions: Problems With No Playbook
PROBLEM SOLVING INTERVIEW: SITUATIONAL QUESTIONS
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
Use these for early-career candidates, or as a second read on judgment.
Score the reasoning, not the answer they pick.
SCENARIOS TO ASK, AND WHY EACH ONE EARNS ITS PLACE
1. A customer reports something that has never happened before and nobody
senior is reachable. What do you do in the first thirty minutes?
Why ask it: this is a normal Tuesday at a small business, and it tests the
line between initiative and recklessness.
2. There are two plausible causes and no time to test both. How do you choose?
Why ask it: forces a criterion. Look for cheapest test first, or biggest
blast radius first, rather than a coin flip.
3. You inherit a process that produces errors every month and nobody knows why.
Where do you start?
Why ask it: tests whether they gather evidence before redesigning. Rewriting
the whole process is the expensive wrong answer.
4. The proper fix takes three days and the customer needs it today. What do you
offer?
Why ask it: separates people who can hold a temporary fix and a permanent
one in mind at once, and who say out loud which is which.
5. It works now and you cannot explain why. What do you do next?
Why ask it: the honest answer is uncomfortable and the dishonest one is easy,
which makes it a useful character question as well as a technical one.
6. Two people give you contradictory accounts of what happened. How do you
proceed?
Why ask it: tests whether they go to the evidence or pick the person they
like. Relevant to every role that touches other departments.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER SOUNDS LIKE
A strong answer asks a clarifying question before answering, then states an
explicit criterion for the choice: what is cheapest to test, what is reversible,
what breaks most if it is wrong, who is blocked. It usually includes telling
somebody, with a time attached.
Two candidates can choose opposite paths and only one of them can explain why.
Score the criterion and the communication, never the option they picked.
Weak answers solve every scenario by working longer, or refuse to act until
somebody senior answers the phone.
NOTES
[Capture the clarifying question, the criterion, and who they said they would tell.]
Set 4: Method, Evidence, and Knowing When to Ask
The first move when something breaks, the limit before asking for help, how they write a problem up, and how they verify a fix. These questions catch borrowed vocabulary with no practice behind it.
Method, Evidence, and Knowing When to Ask
PROBLEM SOLVING INTERVIEW: METHOD AND EVIDENCE
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
QUESTIONS TO ASK, AND WHY EACH ONE EARNS ITS PLACE
1. What is the first thing you check when something is wrong?
Why ask it: everyone with real practice has a first move. People without one
answer in generalities.
2. How do you decide whether to keep going or ask for help?
Why ask it: the answer should contain a limit: a time box, a cost, a number
of attempts. No limit means either lost days or a constant queue at your desk.
3. How do you write up a problem so the next person does not repeat it?
Why ask it: on a small team the next person is often you, at 7pm, months
later. Documentation habits compound.
4. How do you test a fix before you call it done?
Why ask it: the verification step is where quiet rework is prevented, and it
is the step most candidates have never been asked about.
5. What do you do when the data disagrees with the person reporting the problem?
Why ask it: tests whether they treat a report as evidence or as truth, and
whether they can say so politely.
6. Where did your approach come from?
Why ask it: people who learned a method from someone can describe both the
method and the person. It is a fast authenticity check.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER SOUNDS LIKE
Concrete and boring is the target. Reread the actual error text. Reproduce it.
Check what changed most recently. Narrow the problem until it is small enough
to hold. Then ask a named person, with a written summary of what has already
been ruled out, so the ask costs them two minutes instead of twenty.
Weak answers describe a framework in vocabulary the candidate cannot attach to
a single real example, or treat asking for help as either failure or a first
resort.
NOTES
[Capture the first move, the limit before asking, and the verification step.]
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Set 5: Problem Solving for Managers and Team Leads
For roles that decide which problems the team works on: delegation, repeat failures, protecting time for the real fix while fires burn, and problems deliberately left alone.
Problem Solving for Managers and Team Leads
PROBLEM SOLVING INTERVIEW: MANAGERS AND TEAM LEADS
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
Use this set for anyone who will decide which problems the team works on.
QUESTIONS TO ASK, AND WHY EACH ONE EARNS ITS PLACE
1. How do you decide which problems to solve yourself and which to hand off?
Why ask it: a promoted expert who solves everything personally becomes the
bottleneck within a quarter.
2. Tell me about a time your team kept hitting the same problem.
Why ask it: repeat problems are a management failure more often than a skill
failure. Listen for what they changed structurally.
3. How do you stop a team from firefighting the same issue every week?
Why ask it: tests whether they can protect time for the fix while the fires
are still burning, which is the actual difficulty.
4. Describe a decision you made with incomplete information that affected other
5. How do you handle someone who brings you problems without options?
Why ask it: reveals whether they coach or simply absorb. Absorbing scales to
about three people.
6. Tell me about a problem you chose to live with.
Why ask it: a manager who has never accepted a known problem has either not
run anything constrained or is not telling you about it.
WHAT A STRONG ANSWER SOUNDS LIKE
Strong candidates talk about the system rather than the incident: what they
changed so the problem could not recur, who now owns the check, and what they
deliberately left broken because fixing it cost more than living with it. They
tell you what they told the team, and when.
Weak answers are heroic. One person, personally, at midnight, repeatedly. That
is a rep who got promoted, not a manager, and the team behind them is usually
learning nothing.
NOTES
[Capture the structural change, the ownership, and what they chose to accept.]
Set 6: Problem Solving Interview Scorecard
Six scoring areas from 1 to 5 with space for quoted evidence, plus a red-flag checklist, so the decision rests on what was said rather than on who interviewed best. This is the asset most question lists leave out.
Problem Solving Interview Scorecard (1 to 5 Rubric)
PROBLEM SOLVING INTERVIEW SCORECARD
Candidate: __
Interviewer: __
Date: __
Score each area from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). Write one quoted phrase the
candidate actually said next to every score. If you cannot quote anything, the
score is not yet earned.
SCORING AREAS
Defines the problem before solving it Score: [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
Evidence: __
Diagnoses the cause, not the symptom Score: [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
Evidence: __
Works from evidence rather than assumption Score: [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
Evidence: __
Decides under incomplete information Score: [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
Evidence: __
Knows when to ask, escalate, or stop Score: [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
Evidence: __
Verifies the fix and prevents the repeat Score: [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
Evidence: __
RED FLAG CHECKLIST
[ ] Every problem in every story ended solved
[ ] The cause was obvious to them from the first minute
[ ] Cannot name a problem they chose to leave alone
[ ] Blames the previous person for every problem inherited
[ ] Calls a fix done because the complaint stopped
[ ] Solved it and cannot explain why it worked
[ ] Framework vocabulary with no example underneath it
SUMMARY
Total score: ______ / 30
Overall recommendation: [ ] Strong yes [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Strong no
Strongest evidence: __
Biggest concern: __
Interviewer signature: __
Guidance: score within an hour of the interview, before the next candidate
blurs the details. If more than one person interviews, each scores alone and
only then compares, so the most senior opinion does not set the anchor.
Five Questions, Broken Down
Every question below earns its place for a specific reason, and the reason changes what you listen for. These five carry the most weight across the widest range of roles, so if problem solving gets ten minutes of your interview, spend them here.
Walk me through the last thing that broke on your watch. How did you find the cause?
Why ask it: Candidates arrive with a rehearsed story about a solution. Almost nobody rehearses the diagnosis, so this is where the prepared answer runs out.
Strong answer: Names the symptom, the first theory, and what killed that theory. Describes what was checked and in what order, and can say what got ruled out along the way.
Weak answer: Opens at the fix. The cause is presented as obvious from minute one, nothing was ruled out, and there is no moment where the candidate learned something.
What did you first think was wrong, and how did you find out you were wrong?
Why ask it: The best follow up on this page. It requires the candidate to have held a wrong belief and noticed, which a polished story almost never contains.
Strong answer: A specific wrong theory and the specific evidence that broke it, described without embarrassment. Being wrong early is treated as part of the method.
Weak answer: Their first instinct was right. Sometimes true, usually a sign the problem was small or the story has been smoothed over several retellings.
Tell me about a problem you decided not to solve.
Why ask it: Judgment about which problems deserve effort is rarer than the ability to solve them, and a small business cannot afford someone who fixes everything they notice.
Strong answer: Names a real problem left alone, compares the cost of fixing it against living with it, and says who was told about the decision.
Weak answer: Cannot think of one, or describes quietly abandoning something. Abandonment without a decision and a conversation is a different behavior entirely.
How do you know a fix is actually done?
Why ask it: Separates people who stop when the complaint stops from people who confirm the cause is gone. The gap between the two shows up months later as repeat work.
Strong answer: Describes a real check: reproducing the original failure and confirming it no longer reproduces, watching a number for a period, or going back to whoever reported it.
Weak answer: Done means nobody has complained again. There is no verification step and no follow up with the person who raised it in the first place.
When you are stuck, what do you do in the first hour?
Why ask it: Tests whether there is a method under the persistence, and predicts how the person behaves on day three of a job where nobody has seen the problem before.
Strong answer: A concrete sequence: reread the actual error, reproduce it, check what changed most recently, narrow it down, then ask a named person with a written summary.
Weak answer: Keep trying, or ask straight away. The first burns their week and the second burns yours, and neither answer contains a limit.
The pattern holds across all five: the first answer is the rehearsed one, and the signal arrives in the second or third probe. Ask what you first believed, what ruled it out, what the investigation cost, and how you knew it was finished.
Why Brainteasers Do Not Belong Here
Brainteasers measure whether a candidate has heard the puzzle before and how comfortable they are performing under an artificial spotlight. Neither predicts how someone handles a real failure at your company, and a question with no link to the job is difficult to defend as a selection procedure.
The replacement is straightforward: take a real problem from the role, strip the confidential details, and hand it over with the constraints you actually have. Incomplete information, a deadline, and nobody senior available is not a hypothetical at a small business, it is a description of most weeks.
What people ask
What it actually measures
Ask this instead
How many windows are in this city?
Comfort improvising under a spotlight
A real estimate the role requires, with your numbers
A riddle with one right answer
Whether they have heard the riddle
A scenario with two defensible answers, scored on reasoning
Tell me about a problem you solved
Storytelling and preparation
What did you first think was wrong, and how did you find out?
How would you handle a difficult situation?
Fluency at generalities
Last month a customer reported X. Walk me through your first hour.
If you want a structured way to add a work sample alongside the interview, our guide to hiring assessments covers what to test and what to avoid. Keep it short, keep it paid if it takes real hours, and score it against criteria you wrote down first.
Green Flags and Red Flags
The clearest green flag is a candidate who restates the problem in their own words before answering it. The clearest red flag is one who calls every fix done because the complaint stopped, since that is the behavior that generates the same problem again next quarter.
Green flags
Restates the problem before answering it
Names what they ruled out and how
Describes being wrong without flinching
Says what the investigation cost, not only what it saved
Signals of real practice
Has a first-hour routine they can describe
Separates symptom from cause unprompted
Checked something rather than assumed it
Told somebody before the deadline moved
Softer warnings
Every problem in every story ended solved
The cause was obvious from the first minute
Cannot name a problem they left alone
Framework words with no example underneath
Hard red flags
Blames the previous person for everything inherited
Calls it done because the complaint stopped
Solved it and cannot say why it worked
Hid a recurring failure rather than raising it
Treat the softer warnings as prompts to probe rather than as disqualifiers. Someone whose stories all end solved may simply be presenting the way they were taught to present, and one good follow up separates that from a genuine gap. The hard red flags are different, and they overlap with the general interview warning signs worth taking seriously.
How to Score the Answers
Score six areas from 1 to 5 within an hour of the interview, before the next candidate blurs the details. If you cannot quote a phrase the candidate actually said, the score is not yet earned, which usually means the question set was too shallow rather than that the candidate was weak.
Scoring area
Score 1 to 2
Score 4 to 5
Defines the problem first
Starts fixing the symptom as it was handed to them
Restates the problem and checks whether it is the real one
Diagnoses the cause
Names the first plausible cause and stops there
Says what they ruled out, and how they ruled it out
Works from evidence
Reasons from what usually happens
Cites what they checked, measured, reproduced, or read
Decides under uncertainty
Waits for certainty that never arrives
Picks the cheapest reversible test and runs it
Knows when to ask
Never asks, or asks before trying anything
Has a limit: a time box, a cost, or a blast radius
Verifies and prevents
Done means the complaint stopped
Confirms the failure is gone and changes something so it stays gone
Have every interviewer score alone before the group talks. Problem solving answers are unusually easy to talk yourself into, because a confident candidate narrating a crisis sounds capable whether or not the reasoning held. The same discipline sits behind our interview evaluation form if you want one sheet covering every competency at once.
Fair, Legal, and Structured Interviewing
Ask the same job related questions, in the same order, of every candidate. That single habit is what makes a problem solving interview both fair and useful, and it is the practice behind a structured interview, which produces comparable evidence and less room for bias than a free conversation.
Keep the problem on the job, not on the person
Problem solving prompts drift into personal territory faster than most, because the generic version of the question is tell me about a difficult situation you handled, and the honest answer is often a health event, a family crisis, or an immigration process. Federal anti-discrimination law, enforced by the EEOC, prohibits basing hiring decisions on protected characteristics, and EEOC guidance says information requested during the pre-employment process should be limited to what is essential for determining whether a person is qualified. So ask about a work problem, name the domain, and redirect politely if a candidate volunteers something protected. Do not write it down and do not follow up on it. This is general information, not legal advice.
Ask the same problems, in the same order
The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures require that selection procedures be administered and scored in a standardized way by anyone using them to screen candidates. Structured interviewing meets that standard and produces better hires at the same time: identical core questions, asked in the same order, scored on one rubric, make candidates comparable rather than memorable. This matters twice over for problem solving, because the signal lives in the follow up. Decide your probes in advance, in writing, so every candidate gets the same depth instead of only the ones who were engaging in the first five minutes.
Score the reasoning, not the answer
A good scenario has at least two defensible answers, which is precisely why it separates candidates. Two people can choose opposite paths and only one of them can explain the criterion behind the choice. Score that criterion. This also protects you from a subtler bias: candidates who reach the same conclusion you would reach feel correct regardless of how they got there, and candidates who reach a different one feel wrong even when their reasoning is better. Writing the scoring areas before the interview, and quoting evidence next to each score, is what keeps agreement from standing in for assessment.
Weight the sets to how the role actually fails
A bookkeeper, a shift lead, and a support technician all solve problems, but they fail differently. Back-office roles fail quietly, with an error repeating monthly because nobody traced it, so weight the diagnosis and method sets. Frontline and customer-facing roles fail live, in front of a customer, with nobody senior reachable, so weight the situational scenarios. Anyone who decides what the team works on needs the manager set, which is the one most interview kits skip entirely. Pick two or three sets that fit the job, ask every candidate the same ones, and leave the rest.
Executives Say Their Own Organizations Diagnose Badly
In a survey of 106 C-suite executives across 91 companies in 17 countries, reported in Harvard Business Review by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg, Are You Solving the Right Problems?, 85 percent agreed their organizations were bad at problem diagnosis and 87 percent agreed the flaw carried significant costs. Diagnosis is the scarce half of this competency, which is why the questions here aim at it rather than at the fix.
Two sources are worth keeping open while you draft your question list. The EEOC guidance on prohibited employment practices states that information requested during the pre-employment process should be limited to what is essential for determining whether a person is qualified. The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures require that selection procedures be administered and scored in a standardized way.
For a cross check on your own draft, SHRM publishes sample interview questions organized by competency and split into behavioral, situational, and general formats. Use it after you have written your set rather than before, so your questions stay anchored to the actual job. This is general information, not legal advice.
Testing Problem Solving Without an HR Department
Without HR, the conditions you are testing the candidate for are the conditions you are interviewing under. There is no recruiter coordinating scorecards and no panel to balance a strong first impression, so the structure has to live inside the questions themselves. Here is how to close that gap.
There is nobody to escalate to, so the escalation question is the real one
At a larger employer a stuck candidate has a senior colleague two desks away and a documented process to follow. At a ten-person company the escalation path is you, and you are with a customer. That changes which questions matter. The candidate who asks for help immediately will consume more of your week than the work itself, and the one who never asks will burn three days on something you could have answered in a sentence. What you are hiring for is a limit: a time box, a cost ceiling, a number of attempts, after which they come to you with a written summary of what has already been ruled out. Ask for that limit directly and score it as its own area.
The problems you are hiring for have no documentation behind them
There is no runbook, no wiki, and usually no second person who has seen the failure before. So testing whether a candidate knows a specific system tells you less than testing how they orient inside an unfamiliar one. The most predictive question in the behavioral set is the one about fixing something they did not build, because that is a literal description of their first month with you. Listen for how they map the unfamiliar thing before touching it: what they read, who they asked, what they tried in a place where a mistake was cheap. Knowledge of your exact tools is the part that arrives in two weeks anyway.
You are the interviewer, and you also own the problem you are hiring to fix
Most owners run these interviews alone, between the work, which makes it tempting to improvise and then decide on a feeling. Pick two or three question sets rather than all six, write the follow ups down before the first call, and complete the scorecard within the hour while the phrasing is still exact. Once you choose someone, the work shifts from evaluating to hiring well, and FirstHR handles that side for a small business: the offer goes out for e-signature, the new hire paperwork runs as a guided onboarding workflow, first-week tasks get assigned, and every signed document lands on the employee profile. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a helpdesk or ticketing tool, so pair it with whatever your team tracks issues in. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
One practical note on running it: write your follow ups before the call rather than improvising them. The probe is the first thing that disappears when you are busy, and it is the part carrying the signal. Our guide on how to conduct an interview covers the mechanics of the session itself. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
From Interview to Hire
Once the scorecards are in, the work shifts from evaluating to hiring well: a clear offer letter, the new hire paperwork, and a first week that includes at least one genuinely open problem. You hired for diagnosis, so give that judgment something real to work on while everything is still fresh.
Pick two or three sets
Match the sets to how the role fails rather than asking all six, and use the same ones for every candidate so the comparison holds.
Write the follow ups first
Decide in advance what you will probe: what you first believed, what ruled it out, how you knew it was done. The probe carries the signal.
Score, then offer
Complete the rubric within the hour with quoted evidence, compare independently, then put the role, pay, and start date in writing with e-signature.
Hand over real problems on day one
Give the new hire one bounded, genuinely open problem in the first week. You just hired for diagnosis; let them use it while onboarding is fresh.
FirstHR connects that side for a small business: the offer and policy acknowledgments go out for e-signature, the new hire paperwork runs as a guided onboarding workflow, first-week tasks get assigned and tracked, and every signed document lands on the employee profile. To be clear about scope, FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a helpdesk or issue-tracking tool, so pair it with whatever your team logs problems in. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Key Takeaways
Problem solving questions only work when they target diagnosis, so ask how the candidate found the problem rather than how they fixed it.
What did you first think was wrong, and how did you find out you were wrong, is the hardest question on this page to rehearse.
Treat knowing when to ask for help as its own scoring area; the answer should contain a limit, not a personality.
A fix is not done when the complaint stops, so score whether the candidate verifies the failure is actually gone.
Drop brainteasers and use a real problem from the job with the constraints you actually have, scored on reasoning.
Ask the same job related questions of every candidate and score independently on a written rubric before anyone discusses.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are good problem solving interview questions to ask candidates?
The strongest problem solving questions ask how the candidate found the problem, not how they fixed it. Five that consistently work: walk me through the last thing that broke on your watch and how you found the cause; what did you first think was wrong and how did you find out you were wrong; tell me about a problem you decided not to solve; how do you know a fix is actually done; and when you are stuck, what do you do in the first hour. Each one targets a part of the work that candidates rarely rehearse, because the prepared story is almost always about the solution. Pair every question with a follow up that asks what got ruled out, what it cost to investigate, and who was told. Skip the open version, tell me about a problem you solved, since every candidate has that answer ready.
What does a strong problem solving answer sound like?
A strong answer separates the symptom from the cause without being prompted, and contains at least one wrong theory that got discarded. The candidate names what they checked and in what order, says what that ruled out, and describes the evidence that changed their mind, without sounding defensive about having been wrong. The best answers end with a verification step: the original failure was reproduced and no longer reproduces, a number moved, or the person who reported it confirmed it was gone. Listen for the cost of the investigation as well as the benefit of the fix, because someone who says a three-hour diagnosis removed a weekly hour of rework is thinking about the business. A weak answer starts at the solution, treats the cause as obvious from minute one, and calls the work done because the complaint stopped.
Should I use behavioral or situational problem solving questions?
Lead with behavioral questions and use situational scenarios as a second pass. Behavioral questions ask what the candidate actually did, and past behavior is the more reliable predictor, so start with prompts like tell me about a recurring problem you traced to its cause. Situational scenarios earn their place in two cases: when a candidate is early in their career and has thin experience to draw on, and when you want to test judgment against conditions specific to your business. When you use a scenario, build it so two answers are defensible and score the criterion behind the choice rather than the option picked. A practical split for most roles is three or four behavioral questions and two scenarios, with real follow ups on each rather than a longer list answered shallowly.
How do I score problem solving answers fairly?
Use a written rubric with a small number of areas and space for quoted evidence. Six areas cover it: defines the problem before solving it, diagnoses the cause rather than the symptom, works from evidence instead of assumption, decides under incomplete information, knows when to ask or escalate or stop, and verifies the fix so it does not recur. Score each from 1 to 5 within an hour of the interview, before the next candidate blurs the details. If you cannot quote a phrase the candidate actually said, the score is not yet earned, which usually means the question set was too shallow rather than that the candidate was weak. When more than one person interviews, everyone scores alone before the group talks, so the most senior opinion does not set the anchor. A downloadable scorecard is included on this page.
Are brainteasers a good way to test problem solving?
No. Brainteasers and riddles measure whether a candidate has heard the puzzle before and how comfortable they are performing under an artificial spotlight, neither of which predicts how they will handle a real failure at your company. They also create a fairness problem, because a question with no connection to the job is hard to defend as a selection procedure and tends to favor candidates who have practiced the format rather than those who can do the work. Replace them with a real problem from the role, stripped of confidential details and given with the constraints you actually have: incomplete information, a deadline, and nobody senior available. Score the reasoning rather than the answer. A scenario drawn from last month at your business tells you more in five minutes than any riddle.
Are problem solving interview questions legal to ask?
Yes, as long as they stay about work problems. Questions about how a candidate diagnosed a failure, chose between two causes, or decided to escalate are job related and permitted. The specific caution for this competency is that the generic phrasing, tell me about a difficult situation you handled, invites candidates to volunteer a health event, a caregiving crisis, or an immigration process, none of which you may consider. Name the domain in the question so the answer stays on the job, and if a candidate volunteers something protected, redirect politely, do not follow up, and do not write it down. Federal law enforced by the EEOC prohibits basing hiring decisions on protected characteristics including age, disability, religion, national origin, sex, and pregnancy. Ask the same job related questions of every candidate. This is general information, not legal advice.
Which roles should I ask problem solving questions for?
Ask them for any role where the work will arrive without instructions, which at a small business is nearly every role. They matter most for operations and administrative roles, customer support and technical support, bookkeeping and finance, maintenance and field technicians, office managers, and any team lead who decides what the group works on. Weight the sets to how the job fails. Back-office roles fail quietly, with the same error repeating monthly because nobody traced it, so weight the diagnosis and method questions. Frontline roles fail live in front of a customer with nobody senior reachable, so weight the situational scenarios. For anyone setting direction for other people, the manager set is not optional. Skip the sets that do not fit rather than asking all six.
How many problem solving questions should one interview include?
Four to six questions with real follow ups beats a checklist of twelve answered shallowly. The first answer to any problem solving question is usually the rehearsed version, and the signal arrives in the second and third probe: what did you first believe, what ruled it out, how did you know it was finished, what would you do differently. Budget roughly fifteen to twenty minutes of a sixty minute interview if the role depends heavily on this competency, and less if it is one of several you are testing. Choose the questions in advance, write the probes down before the call, and ask the same ones of every candidate so the answers stay comparable. The sets on this page are sized so you can take two or three questions from each and still finish on time.
