Accountability Interview Questions [And Answers]

Interviews

Oct 3

Whether you are a job seeker or a hiring manager, uncovering whether a team or a candidate possesses high accountability can make a huge difference in whether you want to work for an organization or whether you want to hire an individual. It’s important on both sides of the hiring equation.

But it’s also something both sides struggle with identifying with the other. In this article I’m going to cover:

Why employers care so much about accountability

What exactly is a high-accountability person

How to uncover the degree of accountability in a candidate

Interview questions that can reveal accountability (including some for leaders)

How to answer questions about accountability if you’re the person interviewing for a job

And, how you can start building accountability for yourself if this is something you struggle with

Why Do Employers Care So Much About Accountability

In my experience recruiting for thousands of companies over the past 10 years as a third-party recruiter, teams that hold themselves and each other accountable have high collaboration, and communication, and are happier overall. This translates to increased productivity, better ideas, fewer bad hires, and ultimately, larger bottom-line numbers for the companies that can foster this value.

People who take responsibility for their actions, decisions, and personal performance usually outpace others. And if you take ownership of your own success, you’re more likely to succeed in your work.

Qualifications are incredibly important if you plan on landing a job, but what happens when five others possess the same technical abilities and proven experience that you do? that’s where accountability can make a big difference.

Accountability isn’t something easily learned or taught. It’s intrapersonal. This can give you leverage in an interview if you can convey that you do indeed possess this value. Unlike learning how to operate a switchboard or design UX, accountability isn’t easily taught. It can be fostered, but it’s still intrapersonal.

Hiring teams want someone who can show accountability. For high-performing teams, a lack of accountability can have devasting ripple effects.

What Does a High-Accountability Person Look Like

Someone with a high degree of accountability is capable of analyzing their actions, successes, and failures without personally and negatively associating them with their character or value. They seek feedback as a gift and seek it out. They continuously seek to learn and improve.

How to Uncover Accountability in a Candidate

If you’re a recruiter or hiring manager trying to uncover whether a candidate possesses accountability, that can be a difficult task. Interviewing is one tool to assess this value, but it also has some drawbacks.

Unfortunately, an interview is not a work setting and it’s easy to get it wrong. Some candidates are less social and less assertive and may not be the best at articulating stories about accountability during their interviews. This doesn’t mean they don’t possess the value or they should be passed over.

While this article is about interviewing for accountability, here are some additional tools that you may want to employ in addition to your interview.

Behavioral tests can give you some insight, but they are not conclusive. I’ve taken several behavioral tests while evaluating different programs for employers and I can tell you that each time I took one, they all came back slightly different.

The one tried and true way I’ve found to assess accountability is a combination of interviewing and references. Keep in mind that not all references are equal. I would only accept references from former peers and managers that I can contact at a place of work. This allows you to validate who they are and ensure it’s not someone’s BFF helping their buddy get a job.

Interview Questions About Accountability

There are a plethora of questions an employer could ask to assess accountability. The best ones aren’t always direct questions about accountability itself. Asking direct questions is great, but asking some indirect ones ensures candidates don’t simply say what they think you want to hear. If you’re a job seeker, I’ll talk about answering these in the next section.

As you read through this list, remember that accountability isn’t a value that exists in a vacuum. Some of these questions may seem slanted toward another value or trait in addition.

How did you get the training and information you needed for success at your last job?

This question gets the candidate talking about their new hire experience, but also can give you clues about how much ownership they took to learn and find resources. Many teams are stretched thin these days and don’t have the ability to train people for a month in a sheltered safe space. This question may give you clues into accountability for learning and success.

How long did it take you to ramp up in your last role? What do you think was the key to your success?

Similar to the previous question, you can listen for whether the candidate talks about taking initiative and accountability for their success or waiting on others to do it for them. Keep in mind that some organizations have well-oiled and fully-staffed training teams that don’t require new hires to seek out many resources independently. But even so, listen for how the candidate ensured their success in the program.

How often do you expect feedback and how do you prefer to receive it?

Candidates with accountability love feedback. You’ll quickly realize their values based on the answer to this question.

How have you handled negative feedback in the past? Give me an example.

Similar to the previous question, this is a great alternative to uncover their desire for feedback. Do they see all feedback as a blessing or do they focus on how it was delivered and blame shifting? Highly accountable people will talk positively about times they received negative feedback because they view it as a chance to learn.

How do you assess your own performance in a job? Tell me about a time when you had to change an action or behavior.

Candidates who hold themselves accountable also tend to be reflective. They most likely have a process to manage their own performance and make changes when necessary. Guiding a candidate to tell you how they realized an issue, what they did to change it, and what the result was will give you a glimpse into their thought process as well.

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When was the last time you missed a deadline? What did you do?

Stuff happens. No one is perfect. But how we react and what we do to prevent mistakes in the future matters. Ask the candidate about how they handled the situation before the missed deadline, coming up to the deadline, and after. By focusing on all three stages of time, you’ll get a true sense of their personal accountability.

Tell me about a time when you chose not to finish a particular project. What was the reason? How did you manage the situation?

Professionals with accountability also know when things don’t make sense to finish or when they need to be tabled. Not only can you get a glimpse of how accountable they are, but you’ll also uncover things about their ability to prioritize and take ownership.

Leadership Accountability Interview Questions

While the questions in the last section can work for any level of hiring, here are some that I like to turn to when hiring managers.

How do you define accountability?

If a management candidate doesn’t have a good definition of accountability that aligns with yours, how will they foster it on their team? While you can hire for accountability, if you don’t foster the environment as well, you’ll end up with none.

Tell me about a time when another colleague wasn’t pulling their weight. How did you handle the situation?

This one can be used for individual contributors as well, but either way, it will give you insight into the types of environments they’ve worked in. Teams with accountability as a value typically have no problem approaching someone who isn’t performing and offering constructive feedback.

You’re a new manager inheriting a team. How do you build a culture of accountability?

There needs to be a plan to build and maintain accountability within a team. It only takes one bad manager to kill accountability in a team that otherwise would have a high level of it. Accountability like many values is fragile and without the right leadership you can quickly find your values leaving (along with your employees)

Tell me about a time when your team didn’t deliver. Who was responsible and how were similar mistakes avoided in the future?

People with accountability don’t blame shift. If the candidate discusses their role as the leader and takes responsibility, that’s a good sign of accountability.

Answering Questions About Accountability

If you’re a job seeker interviewing for a quality job with a quality company, you should be prepared to answer questions that uncover your value, including accountability. Here are some tips to help you answer these questions.

Understand why the question is being asked

This is probably the most important piece of advice I can give. The best interviewers won’t necessarily ask directly about accountability as you can see from my example questions above.

Take a beat and process the question. Most interviewers ask questions because they have a concern. Ask yourself why they are asking the question. Are they asking it to gauge my level of accountability? When you know why the question is being asked, you’ll be able to answer it better.

Be clear, not vague

Clarity wins job offers. Be clear with your examples. Answer the question directly and don’t use vague language. Be direct and to the point and be sure you answer the question that was asked. Nothing is more frustrating than someone dodging a question or not answering it. You’re not running for political office.

Be honest

You may get a question that asks you to give an example of a particular situation. It’s okay if you’ve never been in that situation before. Even I, with a 20+ year career, haven’t experienced it all. Admit that you haven’t been in that situation before, but if you were, this is how you would handle it. It’s ok to base examples on hypothetical situations.

Use reflection, action, and result

I love the STAR method, but honestly, no hiring manager or recruiter wants to listen to a 10-minute example because you’re trying to use the STAR methodology. Instead, keep it simple. Tell the interviewer how you identified a problem or realized an issue. Then tell them what steps you took to resolve it. And finally, tell them what the result was or what you learned from the situation.

Short examples

Use examples whenever possible, even if they are hypothetical. A hypothetical example is better than no example because it helps the interviewer see into your thought process and visualize what it would be like working with you. Keep your examples under two minutes whenever possible. I like to use the 20 to 2 rule when it’s my turn to speak. Your answer should be somewhere between 20 seconds and 2 minutes long. No longer, no shorter.

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How to Hold Yourself Accountable

If you struggle with accountability, start building it now. It’s a value that will take you far in life and one that you can build up over time. But it takes practice and a conscious effort to change behaviors. Here are some tips to start building accountability.

Find a Partner

No, not the marriage sort, although that could work. It’s hard to build accountability on your own when you don’t already have it instilled in you. Share your goals with someone you trust and talk to them on a regular basis. This will help you hold yourself accountable. This doesn’t have to be work-related either. It could be the littlest thing like a weekly commitment to do something like working out.

Accountability is a trait and value that when built will start to permeate into all areas of your life. Plus it will give you talking points for your interviews.

Share in Public

One way to self-motivate yourself and hold yourself accountable is to share your goals and plans publicly. That could be as easy as sharing it on social media and posting about your journey. When you put your goals out there, you’ll be motivated to hold yourself accountable because everyone will know your business.

It takes some courage to do, but if you’re serious about accountability, it’s one of the best ways to build it.

Change Your Job

Yes, you read that correctly. If you’re working in an environment that is toxic or doesn’t foster accountability, you’ll start to lose yours. Who you surround yourself with is who you become. If your manager, your company, or your team doesn’t have the value of accountability, it will be next to impossible to develop it there.

It may be time to evaluate your options and decide if it’s a good time to make a career move.

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms, oversees Optim’s Resume Revision Service and Interview Prep Service, and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.