HR Business Partners (HRBP) are responsible for aligning an organization’s people strategy with its business strategy. Often knowledgeable about business processes, they interact mostly with high-level executives and collaborate with the HR department to ensure that HR functions and initiatives are reflecting business objectives and needs. Their role does not include administrative, compliance and management HR tasks. Rather, HR Business Partners steer and develop HR strategy, coaches/consults leadership about HR issues and leverages company culture and talent expertise to build a competitive organization. Performing this role requires excellent knowledge of business processes and HR functions as well as strategic thinking, data analytics and communication skills.
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Strategic Thinking
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Business Acumen
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Influencing
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Developing Others
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Data Analysis
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Communication
Core skills for HR Business Partners
While it might seem difficult to figure out whether a candidate will succeed as an HR Business Partner in your company, a well-developed set of interview questions that tap into the core skills required to perform in a HR Business Partner role will go a long way in helping you decide.
But where do you start? How do you develop a set of great interview questions?
The best interview questions come directly from a job analysis. A job analysis is an evidence-based method that focuses on assessing key features of a particular role. These features describe both the job itself (i.e., tasks, responsibilities, and performance objectives), and the characteristics required of someone to perform successfully in the job (e.g., knowledge, skills, and abilities). A job analysis forms the basis of many HR practices such as compensation, performance management, and - you guessed it - how to interview and hire candidates.
At Hireguide, we’ve done the job analysis work for you. We’ve used the method to identify a core set of skills associated with the HR Business Partner role, and we’ve developed and validated a list of behavioral and situational questions with answer guides that tap directly into those core skills. And that’s not all. We’ve compiled these questions and created an HR Business Partner Interview Template for you that integrates other interviewing best practices. Skills-based interviews will not only help you make higher quality and evidence-based hiring decisions, but research also shows they enhance fairness and reduce bias in your hiring process.
Example interview questions to ask
Question 1
Can you describe a strategy or initiative that you created in the past that helped your company achieve one of its main objectives? How did it align with the company's goals, and what was the outcome?
Answer Tips
- Clearly describes how their strategy was connected to company’s main objectives
- Explains the steps they took to both develop and execute the strategy
- Shares specific metrics used to set goals and track progress
- Shares any challenges they faced and how they overcame them
- Describes the outcome and uses evidence (data) to demonstrate their success
Question 2
Imagine you join our team as (insert another department's role name). How will you consider (your company)'s strategy, mission and vision in your work?
Answer Tips
- Discusses using industry and company knowledge to understand its objectives
- Correctly identifies the types of markets the company pursues
- Exhibits knowledge of the market and customer trends
- Discusses aligning themselves and their team with company goals
- Discusses prioritizing the company's financial and strategic goals
Question 3
Imagine you have just joined our company and are required to design a coaching and mentoring program for our new hires. How would you design the program and what would the most important elements be?
Answer Tips
- Clarifies the program goals (succession planning, learning, development, etc.)
- Promotes involvement with the program among existing employees
- Determines how to assign coaches/mentors to the new hires
- Determines the structure of the program (when, where, how it will be run, etc.)
- Identifies metrics to track and validate the program's performance
