Nutshell: How to assess critical thinking during candidate interviews

To pinpoint candidates with strong problem-solving and decision-making skills, we must assess their critical thinking during the interview process by asking the right questions – and know how to evaluate the responses.

Q: What core skill underlies our ability to analyse markets, design policy, evaluate customer service and even communicate effectively with our teams?

The answer is ‘critical thinking’ – a vital capability in today’s knowledge economy, where the challenge lies not in sourcing information (which has never been more abundant or accessible) but in verifying its relevance and accuracy, and understanding how to use it.

Through critical thinking – which involves both cognitive skills and behavioural tendencies (or dispositions) – we can gather knowledge efficiently, process information swiftly and analyse data intelligently. It’s a key component of complex problem-solving, helping us to reduce costly errors and come up with creative solutions.

Senior professionals require critical thinking in order to provide true value to the organisation in a role that largely requires objective decision-making. But even candidates seeking early career roles will benefit from having critical thinking skills. They may not need to make key decisions now, but the ability to think clearly and objectively is important in any job – and an important marker of leadership potential.

When interviewing candidates – especially for management and leadership positions – it therefore makes sense to embed some form of critical thinking assessment into our interview processes.

Creating a structured process

During job interviews, it's easier to evaluate a candidate's critical thinking skills if we adhere to a structured process, looking out for specific qualities and characteristics. All those with strong critical thinking skills should be:

• Creative. Able to think outside the box and consider new ideas and processes.

• Analytical. Able to think through solutions logically, even if there is scare information and resources.

• Accountable. Able to solve problems and evaluate solutions and to take responsibility for their decisions and justify them in an objective, logical way.

This translates into different capabilities at different levels. So:

• at all levels it means being able to identify problems and make careful decisions on next steps.

• for mid-management, it involves the ability to make key decisions and resolve substantial problems.

• for leaders and members of the C-suite, it refers to being capable of making top-level decisions with recourse to strategies that have proven success, alongside strong problem-solving abilities.

To gauge these capabilities, we can ask candidates to describe past experiences, as well as presenting them with hypothetical scenarios. For example:

Critical thinking interview questions based on a candidate's experience:

• Describe a time when you had to make a decision but you didn't have all the information to hand. How did you go about it?

• Give an example of a time when you needed to convince the team, managers or senior leaders in your organisation to try an alternative means of solving a problem and how you managed this.

• How do you proceed when you need to solve a problem? Can you give an example from your current role?

• How quickly do you make decisions? Can you describe your approach to a decision you've made in the past?

• Describe a work-based scenario in which you were presented with an idea that you hadn't previously considered. What did you do?

• Can you describe a time when you found out that your manager had made an error? What did you do?

• Describe a time when you anticipated a problem in advance and took steps to prevent it from becoming an issue.

• How do you handle disagreements with peers and co-workers? Can you provide a recent example?

Consider providing at least some of these questions in advance so that candidates can reflect on their personal experiences and consider their replies. This may help some neurodiverse applicants – as well as anyone who suffers from intense nerves during interviews. It’s difficult for people to cheat by sourcing ‘model answers’ as follow-up questions will make this plain.

Questions about hypothetical scenarios can be asked on the spot in order to test off-the-cuff thinking and data processing,

Critical thinking interview questions based on hypothetical scenarios:

• You spot a mistake in a high-profile report made by your manager but it has already been sent to stakeholders. How would you handle the situation?

• You discover a cheaper, quicker or less resource-intensive solution to a problem at work. You try to explain it to your manager but they don't seem to understand. How do you handle this?

• You are part of a team of specialists – each with very different ideas about the direction a project should take. Deadlines are fast approaching. How do you find a way forward?

• A colleague proposes an uncomfortable solution to a problem faced by your organisation. How would you handle the situation?

Analysing candidates’ answers

Both real and hypothetical questions should be thought-provoking, but not designed to catch people out. Setting candidates brainteasers or riddles is likely to make people shut down, rather than open up – and our aim in this context is to test their critical thinking, not their resilience.

We are trying to encourage candidates to give a full response so that we can get a feel for their reasoning and decision-making methods and determine whether they are able to:

• assess a situation.

• apply logic in order to understand goals, challenges, the background to the task and potential solutions.

• gain information through communication and/or data analysis to gain rich insight

• evaluate alternative solutions.

• make informed, reasoned decisions that will objectively provide value to the organisation.

• communicate their reasoning and process during the interview clearly, without ambiguity.

Ideal candidates will be able to learn from past mistakes, they will not too proud to crowdsource solutions or ask for information or advice in order to move a project forward, and they will be able to make decisions without jumping to conclusions, using logic to justify their actions.

The best people will also be able to demonstrate that they have successfully (and diplomatically) challenged assumptions to achieve better decisions and evidence that they can make decisions quickly – but not hastily – when under pressure to meet deadlines.

Importantly, candidates at a senior level will understand that a fine balance is required in making reasoned, informed decisions that still take restrictions such as resource, budget and time into account.

To measure a candidate’s critical thinking, we should be asking ourselves the following questions as they respond to our questions about real or hypothetical scenarios.

• Did the candidate describe how they identified the key need or issue?

• Did they describe why they knew the need or issue was key?

• Did they explain how they determined the best solutions out of possible alternatives?

• Did they explain how they resolved challenges such as budget, resource and deadlines?

• Did they talk about how they used evidence, analysis, research and collaboration to support their judgements?

• Did they display a willingness to question their own thinking in order to achieve an objectively better result?

• Did they describe any contingency planning or evaluation of actions once they were taken?

• Did they aim to communicate their experience to you in a detailed, clear and unambiguous way?

In this way, by adopting a structured and consistent approach to assessing critical thinking during interviews, we will find it easier to evaluate and compare candidates and to find the people who will help our teams and businesses to thrive.

Meanwhile, we must all learn to become a critic of our own thoughts and actions, developing cognitive flexibility – and letting go of old habits, assumptions or ingrained beliefs. Without critical thinkers at all levels, organisations may fall victim to ‘fake news’, flawed problem-solving and biased decision-making – not least when bringing new talent into our organisations.

Test your understanding

• List the three qualities that critical thinkers display.

• Outline three things that an ideal candidate would be able to demonstrate in their answers that point to their skills in critical thinking.

What does it mean for you?

• Develop your own list of questions for candidates (based on real or hypothetical scenarios) that test their critical thinking skills.

• Consider how you would answer these questions yourself to demonstrate your own critical thinking.