Interview guides

Administrative Support

Interview top administrative talent with strong digital and communication skills.

Administrative Assistant

Role & Responsibilities

  • Please list the top five duties of your last role. How did you prioritize them?
  • How many people did you support administratively, and did one take priority? How did you determine what work to put first?
  • Was it your responsibility to manage the calendar of the person(s) you reported to?
  • Did you plan or schedule lunches, meetings, and conferences? Please explain including how detailed the plans were, how large the event was, and how much autonomy and decision-making you had.
  • Were you responsible for making travel arrangements and if so, were you involved with international travel, expense claims, or security measures?

Confidentiality & Professionalism

  • What type of confidential documents or information did you have access to?
  • How did you handle proprietary or confidential materials, including emails?
  • Do you have experience handling internal and/or external correspondence? If so, please outline how it was received and tracked.
  • Did you compose and/or edit correspondence? If so, what was the nature of the correspondence?

Problem-Solving & Prioritization

  • Tell me about a situation when you had competing priorities and explain how you tackled them.
  • What type of administrative problems did you analyze, report on, and find solutions for?

Communication & Documentation

  • Do you have experience taking minutes of meetings and drafting the minutes for approval?
  • Did you manage projects, or supervise staff?

Financial & Technical Skills

  • Did you have financial responsibilities such as coding financial information, analyzing data, preparing bank deposits or invoices, or managing petty cash?
  • Did you prepare spreadsheets? If so, how complex?
  • Did you maintain equipment and/or supplies and inventory?

Executive Assistants

Executive Presence & Relationship Management

  • How do you skillfully relate to Presidents, CEOs, and the Board of Directors?
  • In what capacity did you act as the gatekeeper between the Board, and employees or clients of the organization?
  • Did you serve as Board Liaison, and if so, how did you facilitate communication?
  • Were you involved in conflict resolution? Please explain.

Confidentiality, Risk & Governance

  • What confidential administrative duties were you accountable for under the Executive Team?
  • Have you been involved in risk management?
  • What items did you flag for review, and how did you handle issues of concern that you became aware of?
  • Were there policies in place regarding risk?
  • Were you involved in Board of Directors remuneration?

Board & Meeting Management

  • Describe the meetings you planned, your involvement in agendas, meeting packages, action items, and follow-up.
  • Did the meetings involve teleconferencing or hybrid formats? If so, how did you set this up and ensure all participants were able to join?
  • When managing calendars and scheduling, did you reply that executives would attend events, or offer regrets on their behalf?
  • Describe your involvement and contributions to the Annual Report.
  • Were you involved in the recruitment of new Board members or Executives? And did you manage the retirement process for Directors? Please explain.

Financial Oversight

  • Did you track costs associated with travel and major conferences?
  • Did you prepare expense claims and verify receipts?

Communications & Thought Leadership

  • Did you write speeches, presentations, or press materials?
  • Did you suggest educational opportunities or track courses taken by team members?

Receptionist / Switchboard Operator

Call Management & Switchboard Operations

  • In your past roles, how many phone lines have you answered?
  • What was the volume of calls you received daily? (a typical Receptionist will answer 40 to 150 calls per day)
  • Are you comfortable using a switchboard? (a typical switchboard handles 150 to 350 calls per day)
  • What telephone system was in place? (Cisco, Nortel/Avaya, Mitel, NEC, Panasonic, etc.)
  • How many lines were there as part of the system?
  • How many extensions or users were there?
  • Did you take paper messages, email messages, or transfer calls?
  • Did the company use a back-door or auto-attendant system in which users could receive calls directly, and not go through reception?

Client Service & First Impressions

  • How do you feel you made a great first impression?
  • Did you answer calls in any language other than English? If so, which ones?
  • Did you greet visitors or customers in person? If yes, what was the volume during a typical day?
  • Did you have disgruntled or unhappy callers and if so, what role did you play to diffuse the issues?

Visitor & Security Management

  • Were there security procedures in place for you to follow or access control?
  • Did you issue visitor passes, parking passes, or maintain logs?

Administrative & Support Duties

  • Do you have experience with couriers?
  • Were you involved with any accounting or bookkeeping duties?
  • How much detail did you have to provide regarding product or service explanations?
Clerk, Office Assistant & Coordinator

Team Support & Role Preferences

  • In your most recent role, how large was the team?
  • How many people did you support administratively?
  • Do you prefer working in the front of the office or do you prefer to work in the back?
  • Are you comfortable performing a repetitive task for an extended period of time, or do you prefer there to be constant change in your role?

Document & Records Management

  • Have you been responsible for photocopying documents? What copiers are you most familiar with?
  • Have you done document scanning? If so, what type of scanner did you use?
  • How many hours did you scan per day?
  • How was scanned information saved?
  • How much filing have you done?
  • Did you file materials physically or electronically?
  • Did you keep track of physical files that had been removed from the filing system? Please explain.
  • In the context of electronic document systems (EDS), were you responsible for the retrieval, indexing, storage, distribution and/or security?
  • What EDS did you use?
  • Were there workflows and rules pre-established or did you have to put them in place?

Communication & Research

  • What percentage of the day were you on the phone versus on the computer?
  • Were you involved in research? If so, what type of research were you doing and for what purpose?
  • How did you know the content you were relying on was accurate? How did you present your findings?
  • Did you answer the telephone as part of your role?

Data Entry & Accuracy

  • Tell me about a project you worked on that involved extensive data entry.
  • Was the data entry you’ve done mostly alpha, numeric, or both?
  • Do you know how many keystrokes you do per hour, and your accuracy rate?

Mailroom, Couriers & Logistics

  • Were you responsible for coordinating couriers?
  • Did you ever have a package that had to get somewhere quickly, and if so how did you handle getting it to the destination on time?
  • Have you ever worked in a mailroom? Did you sort and deliver mail?
  • Did you use a postage system? If so, which one?

Office Operations & Administrative Support

  • Did you perform word processing duties, such as preparing and printing letters or documents? If so, what software did you use?
  • Did you purchase or maintain office equipment?
  • Were you involved in providing any basic IT support (hardware, software, telephony)?
  • Did you run errands, or make purchases for business events?
  • Did you have any physical work to do in your past roles, such as lifting and moving boxes, tidying or organizing office space, shredding, or other? Please elaborate.

Financial & Transactional Duties

  • Did you have any financial duties such as invoicing or preparing the bank deposit?
Customer Service & Call Centre Agent

Call Handling Experience

  • What was the nature of the outbound calls you made? Were they business-to-business calls, or business-to-residential?
  • Did you have quotas per hour?
  • Did you handle inbound calls?
  • Were you answering inquiries, resolving problems, and/or up-selling a product or service?
  • When you recognized the opportunity to up-sell, how did you further enhance the call?
  • Did you have set goals? Did you meet these goals regularly?

Quality & Performance Management

  • Were calls monitored and/or documented? Did you receive feedback on your calls?
  • Have you won any customer service or call centre performance awards?
  • What are the three most important lessons you’ve learned in providing superior customer service?

Systems & Tools

  • Have you worked in a setting with scripted screens?
  • Did you have a knowledge database from which to draw?
  • Did you conduct research in order to uncover the right answer to inquiries?
  • Have you worked with an automatic dialer?
  • Did you maintain a call centre database? If so, which one?

Training & Complaint Management

  • Did you receive any training on how to handle complaints? Please explain.
Meeting & Events Coordinator

Event Scope & Role

  • What type of events did you organize (i.e., annual conferences, board meetings, industry conventions, trade shows, galas, etc.)?
  • Were you the lead Event Coordinator, or did you report to an Event Director?
  • How large were the meetings/events you coordinated — including the number of attendees, size of facilities, number of meeting rooms, etc.?
  • What was the longest timeframe you were given to plan an event in advance of the event date, and what was the shortest time?

Planning & Decision-Making

  • Were you a decision-maker on the theme, city, and/or location in which the events would be held? What was your role in site selection?
  • Did any of the events you planned involve an Expo Hall, and how did you engage the interest of potential exhibitors?
  • Who managed the registration of exhibitors, their set-up, and take-down?
  • What was your favourite theme for an event or convention?

Budgeting & Vendor Management

  • Were you responsible for the master budget for the event, and if so, how did you oversee the budget?
  • Did you negotiate contracts with the main vendors? What was the largest contract you signed in terms of dollars and scope?
  • Did you have to attract sponsors or fundraise for any of the events you worked on?

Logistics & Operations

  • What logistics were you responsible for (i.e., hotel, meeting space, registration desk, transportation)?
  • What types of meeting or conference rooms did you organize in terms of layout?
  • Did you organize entertainment and off-hours events or activities? Please explain.
  • Did you plan menus and meals for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner? How did you handle food allergies or other nutritional limitations or needs?
  • Did you rely on caterers or in-house chefs?
  • How did you organize the registration desk (i.e., name tags, bags, onsite payment, etc.)?
  • Did you hire additional staff for the event? How many people and for what roles?
  • What scheduling was required for event staff?
  • What was your role on the day of, or during, the event itself?

Speakers & Programming

  • Did you coordinate guest speakers and/or keynote speakers who were paid for their engagement, or were speakers from the industry provided at no cost?
  • How did you ensure their message would be on-point?
  • Did you ever deal with celebrity speakers?
  • Did a keynote or guest speaker ever back out at the last minute? If so, how did you handle the situation?

Technical & Creative Production

  • Were you responsible for the technical requirements and equipment, including audio-visual, staging, lighting, screens, multimedia, and more?
  • Did you work with a designer for agendas, booklets, signs, banners, etc.? If so, did you negotiate and order printing?

Problem-Solving

  • Tell me about the biggest problem you encountered during a conference or large event. How did you resolve it?

Professional Development

  • Have you taken event planning courses? Are you a member of MPI (Meeting Planners International) or similar professional associations?
Microsoft Office, Design, and AI Skills for Administrative Support Roles

Microsoft Word

Questions to Ask

  • Tell me about the routine work you’ve done in MS Word.
  • Did your role include creating and saving documents, or was there a requirement to do formatting and create tables?
  • Some of the work we do in MS Word requires intermediate to advanced use. Have you:
  • Modified templates?
  • Inserted headers and footers?
  • Formatted more complex tables?
  • Used track changes to accept/decline edits?
  • In the context of doing a large mailer, did you use mail merge? If so, did you create labels as well?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Creating and printing/emailing a mail merge
  • Creating mailing labels
  • Inserting links to other documents
  • Designing and creating forms
  • Creating master documents
  • Creating bookmarks
  • Tracking edits and protecting modifications
  • Inserting/deleting comments

Microsoft Excel

Questions to Ask

  • Describe your experience using MS Excel. What tasks did you use it for?
  • What type of spreadsheets have you created? How were they used, and by who?
  • Did you rely on MS Excel daily?
  • Did you:
    • Freeze/unfreeze cells?
    • Create links between worksheets?
    • Group or import data?
  • How do you wrap the text within a cell?
  • What report formats are available (Compact, Report, Tabular)? Which ones did you rely on?
  • Have you ever used HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP functions to search for data in a table?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Grouping/importing data
  • Using named ranges in formulas
  • Applying conditional functions (IF, nested IFs)
  • Using HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP functions
  • Creating drop-down menus
  • Adding password protection to worksheets/workbooks
  • Using conditional formatting
  • Creating and modifying pivot tables
  • Installing and managing add-ins
  • Using Data Analysis for reports
  • Producing summary reports
  • Creating/modifying macros

Microsoft Outlook

Questions to Ask

  • Is Microsoft Outlook your primary professional email program?
  • Did you use the calendar to create appointments and book meetings?
  • Did you manage contacts or create groups of contacts?
  • How did you handle spam emails?

An Advanced User Would Have Experienced:

  • Creating contact groups
  • Creating/scheduling calendar appointments (recurring and one-off)
  • Responding to meeting requests
  • Setting reminders
  • Marking emails as spam
  • Setting up signatures

Microsoft PowerPoint

Questions to Ask

  • Explain how you have used PowerPoint for a presentation. What sort of presentations did you create? Who was your audience?
  • When building a presentation, did you use templates or create/save your own?
  • Tell me about a template you created — what features did it include?
  • Did you add images, charts, graphs, sound, or video clips?
  • After a presentation, did you share materials? How (handout, PDF export, online upload)?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Inserting sound files (timing, repetition, fading)
  • Embedding video clips
  • Creating and saving templates
  • Creating custom slide masters
  • Copying/pasting content from other programs
  • Adding internal/external links (slides, documents, email addresses)
  • Creating graphic hyperlinks
  • Building self-running presentations
  • Adding/modifying transitions and animations

Adobe Illustrator

Questions to Ask

  • Describe some of the images/graphics you have created in Illustrator. What were they used for?
  • Have you rasterized images?
  • What types of effects have you applied (pucker, bloat, transparency, etc.)?
  • How have you applied layers and groups?
  • Do you have a portfolio you can share?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Creating 3D illustrations and lighting effects
  • Using Creative Cloud graph tools
  • Prepping files for print/web
  • Creating custom brushes
  • Using live trace
  • Applying special effects

Adobe InDesign

Questions to Ask

  • What type of desktop publishing have you done in InDesign?
  • Have you designed/saved your own templates?
  • Have you imported text from other documents?
  • What paragraph and character styles have you applied?
  • How have you formatted imported graphics?
  • Have you exported projects as PDFs or uploaded them online?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Formatting shortcuts
  • Treating items as global objects
  • Importing external text
  • Using advanced layer controls
  • Applying frame fitting options
  • Anchoring objects
  • Adding a table of contents?
  • Applying advanced text flow
  • Managing long documents

Canva

Questions to Ask

  • How have you used Canva in your role (social posts, internal communications, proposals, event materials)?
  • Do you use pre-built templates, or do you create and brand custom templates for your team?
  • Have you collaborated with others in Canva (shared folders, brand kit, approval flows)?
  • Have you used Canva for presentations, and how do you compare it with PowerPoint?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Building brand kits (logos, fonts, colors)
  • Creating custom templates for team-wide use
  • Using advanced design tools (background remover, animations, charts)
  • Exporting designs across formats (PDF, MP4, GIF, HTML presentations)
  • Integrating Canva with other platforms (HubSpot, Teams, Slack, Google Drive)

AI Tools

Questions to Ask

  • Have you used AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Jasper) for writing, summarizing, or editing documents?
  • Have you used AI to create presentations, design graphics, or analyze data?
  • How do you fact-check or verify AI-generated outputs before sharing them?
  • How do you balance efficiency with AI while keeping a human/professional voice?

An Advanced User Would Have Experience:

  • Using AI to automate repetitive document formatting or summarization
  • Drafting proposals, reports, or slide content with AI — and editing for tone/accuracy
  • Leveraging AI design features in Canva, PowerPoint, or Illustrator
  • Using AI-driven Excel analysis (forecasting, anomaly detection)
  • Applying AI-powered proofreading and translation tools
Sales Administrator

Sales Team Support

  • What type of interaction did you have with Account Managers?
  • What support did you provide to field sales representatives?
  • How did you relay customer concerns?

Client-Facing Materials

  • Were you responsible for preparing client presentations and correspondence?
  • Did you coordinate trade shows?

Customer & Order Management

  • What role did you play when it came to setting up new customer files?
  • Were you responsible for processing orders, managing inventory, or processing online payments?

Budgeting & Reporting

  • What involvement did you have with respect to budgeting and tracking expenses?
  • Were you responsible for managing a sales budget?
  • Did you generate monthly or quarterly reports?
  • Did you provide analysis or recommendations based on those reports?

Bids, Proposals & Sales Growth

  • Did you track bidding opportunities on public websites for which your firm could bid?
  • Did you coordinate and/or write proposals?
  • Were they to government or private sector, and what was their magnitude (size and dollar volume)?
Office Manager

General Role & Leadership

  • Describe what responsibilities were included in office management in your last role.
  • How many people worked in the office? Who did you report to?
  • How would you describe your management style?
  • What is one skill you would like to enhance as a supervisor, and why?
  • When a problem arose within the office, who was the primary decision maker?

Facilities & Premises Management

  • Did you manage the physical premises in terms of leases, leasehold improvements, equipment, security, and facilities management? Describe your role.
  • Have you ever been involved in finding a new premise, negotiating or signing a new lease, designing the layout, hiring contractors, purchasing telephone and other equipment, and overseeing an office move?
  • Did you have security plans in place for the office? Describe your emergency preparedness plan.

Team Supervision & HR Functions

  • Were you responsible for supervising the administrative staff in the office? If yes, how many employees were you supervising?
  • Did you have performance management issues? If yes, how did you handle these?
  • How did you recognize excellent employees?
  • How did you manage the workload?
  • Were you involved in Human Resources such as recruiting, interviewing, hiring, orientation for new employees, ongoing training, annual reviews, or terminations?
  • What roles did you recruit for?
  • Did you manage attendance? If so, how did you track it?
  • Did you have to deal with attendance discrepancies at the end of the year?
  • Did you have employees who abused attendance? If so, how did you address it?
  • What is your experience with conflict within the office? What type of conflict did you encounter most often? Was it resolvable? What steps did you take to resolve it?
  • Did you ever have to address workplace bullying or harassment? Please explain.

Health, Safety & Compliance

  • Were you responsible for health and safety? If yes, were you able to take preventive measures to reduce injuries?
  • What was your role in the back-to-work program when someone was on leave?
  • Did you update safety procedures?

Finance & Budgeting

  • Did you have bookkeeping functions and if so, what were they? (See the bookkeeper tab for additional questions.)
  • What financial/accounting functions did you perform?
  • Were you responsible for tracking and ordering supplies?
  • Did you have a budget from which to operate for supplies and other expenses?

Procedures & Productivity

  • Did you write office procedures? If so, what type of procedures?
  • How did you communicate the procedures?
  • Did you find new procedures were easily adopted by team members?
  • Did anyone resist new procedures? If so, how did you approach this?
  • Were you responsible for office productivity? If so, how did you motivate employees to encourage productivity?

Technology & Operations

  • Did you provide basic support for operational and technical needs (e.g., hook up computers or phones, fix paper jams, etc.)?
  • Did you oversee your company’s social media policy?
  • Did you write reports, or deliver presentations to management?

Customer & Employee Relations

  • Did you manage complaints from customers or employees? What type of complaints and how did you resolve them?

Soft Skills for Administrative Roles

Verbal Communication

  • Do you have a lot of experience communicating with clients, suppliers, or employees over the telephone or video calls? If so, what was the nature of these conversations and with whom?
  • Tell me about a difficult phone or video conversation and how you handled it.

Case Scenario (live roleplay):

Provide two scenarios typical to your business (e.g., an unhappy client, a scheduling conflict, or a miscommunication with a supplier). Ask the candidate to explain how they would handle each situation. Avoid probing; let them be descriptive or animated. Evaluate clarity, tone, and professionalism.

Assessment:
Call the candidate (or simulate a video check-in) and ask one follow-up question. Evaluate how they communicate remotely — clarity, tone, listening skills, and ability to adapt.

Written Communication

  • Describe the type of letters, reports, or digital documentation you wrote in your former roles. Were you responsible for writing, proofreading, and/or editing?
  • Did your organization have email and chat protocols (e.g., Teams/Slack etiquette), or could you use emoticons and abbreviations?
  • Have you used tools like Grammarly, Microsoft Copilot, or AI drafting assistants to support your writing? How do you ensure accuracy and professional tone when using them?

Case Scenario (email writing):

Give the candidate a simple email to respond to (e.g., “Please decline my presence at a meeting” or “A client asks for an update on a delayed project”). Evaluate tone, professionalism, and conciseness.

Assessment (proofreading):

Test their editing skills with a one-page document that contains punctuation, grammar, spelling, and formatting issues. Look for attention to detail and consistency.

Work Culture & Collaboration

  • How many people did you report to in your last role? Did they provide you with routine feedback?
  • Of those you reported to, what personality was the best fit for you, and why?
  • Tell me about a difficult personality you worked with and how you learned to work together.
  • What type of instruction works best for you (in person, verbally, by email, or via project management tools)?
  • What steps do you take if you don’t understand instructions?
  • What task did you love in your last role? What task did you dislike the most?
  • In your opinion, what is the difference between confidence and over-confidence?
  • Tell me about someone who has inspired you.
  • Explain a workplace situation that made you frustrated or angry. How did you manage your emotions?
  • What has been the best work environment you’ve experienced, and why?
  • What contributions did you make to enhance your company’s culture?
  • Please provide an example of how you witnessed our company’s culture in action during the interview process. Why do you think our organizational culture is the right fit for you?

Work Habits & Professional Expectations

  • What hours did you work in your last role?
  • Did you ever go in early or stay late?
  • How often were you asked to take work home or join late meetings?
  • Among important factors you are looking for, how would you rank your need for:
    • A collegial/happy work environment
    • Leadership responsibilities
    • New training opportunities
    • Variety in duties
    • Recognition

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