Shift Leader - Interview Questions

While shift leaders aren’t typically required to have a certain level of education to be hired, on-the-job training and experience can help you be successful in your role. Even if you don’t have past experience as a shift leader, talking about how you’ve prepared for this role and what skills you’ve improved upon in past roles can help showcase your knowledge and understanding of what it takes to be a shift leader. 

Problem-solving skills are critical for a shift leader, as well as leadership skills and the ability to stay calm and defuse stressful situations. The hiring manager wants to know you’re able to resolve disagreements or problems between team members quickly and effectively to ensure the shift work continues and other employees and customers are not disturbed.

Tell a story about a past experience you may have had resolving employee disputes: “In my last role, two teammates had a disagreement about _____. I was able to quickly solve the problem by _____.”

A significant part of your role is making sure employees complete their tasks each shift, which must happen while also complying with company policies. This helps ensure work gets done in a safe environment. 

For example, you may say something like “First, I write all procedures down and keep them easily accessible for employees. I am sure to explain why the procedures and policies are necessary, even if they seem trivial, and teaching them is an important part of training new employees. Finally, I reward employees who regularly comply with procedures by _____.”

A great shift leader must have several qualities and skills to be successful. This includes industry knowledge, communication skills, leadership skills, problem-solving skills, customer service experience, and teamwork skills. Choose one or two that you feel are most important and explain your answer. The hiring manager wants to ensure you know what it takes to be a great shift leader, and know you can explain why you feel the way you do.

For example, you may say “I believe _____ and _____ are the most important qualities or skills a shift leader can have because _____. Having these skills allows a shift leader to _____.”

Shift leaders are often in charge of training new employees, so the hiring manager wants to know your comfort level and experience with teaching others. It’s important to showcase your ability to learn each of the areas of operation so that you’ll be able to teach those tasks to the new hire.

Talk about a time when you trained an employee in the past and describe how it went. Reference your training style, and how knowing the business made it easy to ensure they learned all of the appropriate tasks.

Conducting performance reviews and reporting the results back to your management team may be one of your responsibilities as a shift leader. While there isn’t a right or wrong answer, ideally you’ll have experience in using metrics or other means of evaluation to track and report on performance. 

Explain what kind of strategies you use or what metrics you track, including knowing what the employee does throughout the shift to meet goals, quotas, or productivity standards. 

For example, you may say, “At my last job we had sales quotas we tracked throughout the week. This helped me to understand who was exceeding at their role, and who was struggling and needed additional coaching.”

Part of leading a shift is making decisions for your team, such as creating schedules, designating tasks, supervising employees, and resolving disputes. Not every decision you make will be embraced by employees, but the hiring manager wants to know you’re able to make and stick to these decisions regardless if it’s an unpopular one.

Share an example of when you had to make a decision that wasn’t popular with all team members and the outcome of that decision. Be sure to focus on how it highlights your leadership and communication skills. 

If your team member calls off or doesn’t show up for a shift unexpectedly, part of being a shift leader is handling that situation. You may speak to how you find a replacement or ask another employee to cover the shift. Or, perhaps you’ll cover for that employee yourself. The business operations must continue even if someone calls off, so critical thinking skills and have the ability to plan for the unexpected are important.

You will inevitably receive direction or instructions that you may not agree with, but the important thing is you can show you’re capable of following orders regardless. Your answer should explain the situation and how you handled it. Be sure to avoid sounding angry or negative, and it may help to talk about what you learned from that experience.

If you perform well, take care of employees, and ensure tasks get done during each of the shifts you lead, you may have opportunities to advance your career through promotions or moving into a management role. 

Unless you know how a company promotes into management (such as internal or externally-only), talk about your ambition for your future by focusing on aspects of the industry or role that you enjoy, and skills you’re looking forward to developing further.