VP People

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VP HR/People interview doc
Link
The key responsibilities of a VP HR are:
  1. Oversee the recruitment and hiring processes across the company
  2. Collaborate with leadership team to plan headcount, development, and compensation plans for their organizations
  3. Ensure adherence of people operations and policies to all applicable regulations
  4. Reduce regrettable attrition rates among employees
  5. Work to create and maintain a strong culture that reflects the company’s values


Management and Hiring
Tools and Processes
Business Partnership
Rewards
Talent Acquisition
Culture


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The HR/People leader should have all these attributes: empathy, compassion, emotional intelligence, knowledge of diversity and inclusion issues, coaching.


Some sample interview questions you can think about:
  • How do you ensure objectives of HR operations are aligned with the company’s strategy?
  • What programs or initiatives have you put into place around inclusion and diversity in your previous roles? How did you measure the effectiveness of them?
  • What changes in your approach (towards talent + people programs/roadmap) when the company has a distributed team?
  • What is company culture to you? How would you maintain it as the company grows?
  • Tell me about some challenging employee relations issues you have handled.
  • How do you stay on top of state + federal employment and leave laws, especially with having a distributed team in multiple states?
  • What KPI’s do you use to measure the effectiveness of the HR function?
  • Have you been in an org that has had OKRs before? How did you effectively manage it across the whole company?
  • Have you led manager training before? Tell me about how you rolled it out and measured how effective it was.
  • What is your role in assisting other departments in improving their people practices and developing their employees?
  • Do you personally subscribe to any particular philosophy about how to hire and develop people? (Ie: The Who method? SMART goals? Myers Briggs)?
  • Describe a time you developed a new policy. What did you do to make it work successfully?
  • Tell me about a time when you implemented an HR initiative, policy or program that didn’t stick. What should you have done differently to avoid that?
  • Tell me about a time you were successful in driving positive change.
  • Describe a time when a manager came to you with a problem they couldn’t solve. What did you do?
  • Tell me about a time you had foreseen a problem with employees. How did you prevent it from escalating?
  • What do you think was your most important contribution to the workplace in your previous job?
  • As HR professionals, we often deal with legal and ethical situations. Tell me about an ethical situation you have encountered and what part you took in resolving it." Answers reveal a lot about the candidate's people focus.
  • Tell me about a time when you encountered a problem but there was no official guidelines for solving it and you hadn’t dealt with it before. What was your course of action? What happened?
  • Impact/legacy-driven question like “When all is said and done, what do you want to have been made better as a result of you doing this work, here, now?” It opens a window into what they’re passionate about, their understanding and framing of the role’s business drivers, and what they’ll be most motivated to do with any latitude or extra effort, especially in broad and varied roles. It’s also a helpful filter for candidates who are attracted to these roles by the fun/surface stuff or are too traditionally HR-minded.


LEARNING AGILITY
  • How do you stay on top of the tools and resources in the talent/HR space and what are the tools you have found to be the biggest bang for the buck?
  • What would you suggest for our company, at this stage to look at and potentially use for tools + resources?


CREATIVITY + STORYTELLING

HR is now on the front lines of most company’s branding efforts, telling stories and shaping prospective hires’ perceptions of what it’s like to work in your organization.

HR/People leaders need great communication skills and should be able to put together strong narratives that can influence and engage people–both inside and outside the organization.

  • Tell me about how you have used social media or other digital means to build up employer branding. What impact did it have on hiring (and/or retention)? 
  • What would be some suggestions for your company to do with regards to employer branding?
  • How have you partnered with Marketing in the past to effectively manage internal employee communication?


BUSINESS AND DATA ACUMEN

HR leaders now need a strong grasp of their organizations’ business model and market strategy, industry dynamics and competitive landscape, and how all those components impact human capital–from hiring and performance to diversity and inclusion.

  • How have you kept up to date with the industry trends in your previous companies to help with hiring/retention and understanding the business and landscape?
  • What do you know about us and any relevant companies in our space?


Further reading: