The executive interview questions that actually decide it

“What would you do in your first ninety days?”

Not a plan test. It is a test of whether you will impose a template or find out first. The strong answer names what you would need to learn, from whom, and what would have to be true before you changed anything — and includes one thing you would decide early regardless.

“Why are you leaving?”

A temperament test wearing a factual costume. Any version that blames a named person costs you the room, however justified. The version that works is short, structural and forward-facing, and does not linger.

“Tell me about something that did not work.”

The most reliable signal in the whole conversation. Candidates who cannot produce a real failure are read as either unreflective or evasive. The answer should cost you something to tell — that is the point of the question.

“What would your last team say about you?”

Rarely about praise. The useful answer includes the criticism they would make, stated plainly, because every senior leader generates one and pretending otherwise is the only wrong response.

Every one of these questions is asking the same thing in a different costume: what are you like when it is difficult.

The questions you ask

• What has to be true in eighteen months for this hire to have been obviously right?
• What has stopped the last two attempts at this from working?
• Where does this function's authority actually end?
• What is the disagreement inside the leadership team that I would be walking into?

A caution about the last one

Ask it once, late, and lightly. It is the question that most separates candidates who are evaluating the role from candidates who are hoping to be chosen — but asked early or repeatedly it reads as suspicion rather than diligence.