There are some key themes and questions to help get honest, detailed answers that can lead to the right psychologist for your practice. The questions are organized into seven themes that cover essential areas you need to understand about a potential hire. Use this as a framework, but adapt them to meet the specific needs of your practice.
Education and training
This gives a chance to understand the candidate’s educational foundation, their capacity to translate theory into clinical practice, and their commitment to ongoing learning.
1. Can you describe the focus of your graduate training and how it has shaped your clinical identity and approach?
Look for: Supervised experience and an ability to incorporate theory and coursework into tangible clinical work.
2. Please tell me about your postdoctoral training or any continuing education and how it informs your daily clinical practice.
Look for: Specific theories or techniques they can name and explain. Consider vague answers as red flags. Specific answers like “I learned how the DBT TIPP skill can be applied and I use this frequently with clients who are experiencing high levels of distress” display a practical understanding.
3. What are you most excited about learning through continuing education and how do you hope to incorporate that into your clinical work?
Look for: Actively pursues ongoing training and level of excitement about the topics they describe.
Clinical experience and competence
This gives you the best chance to understand the level of clinical skill of the candidate. If your clinic is hiring the psychologist to conduct assessments you will want to pay particular attention to this capacity.
4. (Present a case vignette) Can you please walk us through your approach to assessment, understanding the client’s concerns, and developing a treatment plan? Walk us through your thought process for making these decisions.
Look for: Detailed level of insight and skill with their assessment and treatment decisions.
5. Can you walk me through your process of a psychological assessment from start to finish? Please include how you select and interpret specific assessment tools and incorporate the findings into your clinical decisions and treatment planning. Feel free to use a case you have worked on in the past as an example.
Look for: The candidate's capacity to list specific assessment tools and interpret those results appropriately.
6. What specialty areas do you have and how long have you worked with those populations?
Look for: The adequate level of experience you are looking for and alignment between their areas of specialty and the clinical vision of your practice.
7. How do you address cultural and contextual factors in your assessments and treatment approaches?
Look for: Awareness of their own cultural blind spots, examples of how they have adapted interventions for different populations, and ongoing willingness to research and consult when working with unfamiliar cultural contexts.
Theoretical orientation and approach
This theme allows you to explore the theoretical lens of the candidate and how well they can apply those theories in clinical practice.
8. Can you describe your theoretical orientation and how you tailor treatment approaches to each client’s needs?
Look for: An ability to translate theory into practice, clinical versatility, and openness to multiple treatment approaches (unless your practice focuses only on a particular modality).
9. Please provide a case example and how your theory guided your conceptualization and treatment decisions.
Look for: Clinical experience through case presentation and capacity to make effective treatment decisions.
Ethics and boundaries
Ethics are guiding principles of practice, and ethical dilemmas are inevitable at some point. With how pervasive ethics are to therapy practice, it’s important to see how a candidate thinks about ethics and how they make ethical decisions.
10. Describe a time you faced an ethical dilemma. How did you handle it?
Look for: Understanding of APA ethical guidelines, solid ethical reasoning, and how they consult with peers or supervisors during ethical dilemmas.
11. How do you think about professional boundaries with clients? Please give an example of a time that you had to enforce boundaries.
Look for: Understanding of professional boundaries and dual relationships as well as the capacity to enforce those boundaries.
Communication and interpersonal skills
The ability to communicate well and relate to others is foundational to client work and teamwork within a practice. In addition to observation of the candidate’s interactions throughout the interview process, these direct questions can illuminate the level of the candidate’s skills in this area.
12. How do you work to establish rapport and a connection with the clients you work with?
Look for: Empathy, adaptability, ability to build trusting relationships with clients and overcome client resistance.
13. What do you value in a team and work environment?
Look for: Ability to communicate well with peers and fit into a team environment.
14. How do you handle conflict and contrasting opinions on a multidisciplinary treatment team?
Look for: Professionalism, collaboration, adaptability, openness to feedback.
Growth and professional development
This realm of questions can reveal the candidate’s self-awareness, honesty, and desire to better themselves.
15. Which of your skills do you believe are strong and which areas do you need to grow in the most?
Look for: Self-awareness, honesty, humility. This can be compared with any references that are contacted during the recruitment process to see if the answers align with other’s perspectives.
16. What areas of clinical skills or modalities are you hoping to learn and develop? What are your plans to pursue that growth?
Look for: Desire for continuous improvement and learning, excitement about the craft of providing therapy.
Personal goals and alignment with the practice
This is potentially one of the most important themes of the interview. These questions help to show if the candidate’s goals and future plans align with the mission and vision of the practice. A candidate may be impressive interpersonally and clinically, but their alignment with the direction of the practice is ultimately paramount for longevity.
17. Where do you envision your career going over the next five years and how might this role support that path?
Look for: Authenticity in describing their personal vision, areas of alignment with the vision of the practice.
18. What aspects of the practice’s mission and vision appeal to you most?
Look for: Depth to their understanding of the ethos of the practice, genuine excitement about joining the practice.
