20 Interview Questions to Ask Interns (and What Good Answers Sound Like)

Interviewing an intern is different from interviewing an experienced hire. There is little work history to probe, so you are really assessing three things: will they learn quickly, will they do the work reliably, and do they have enough of the base skill to be useful within a few weeks. The questions below are grouped by what they test. Pick four or five from each group rather than asking all twenty. For the full process around the interview, see our intern interview guide for employers.

Motivation: why this internship?

1. "What made you apply to this internship in particular?" Good: mentions something specific about your product, sector or the work described. Red flag: a generic answer that would fit any company.
2. "What do you want to be able to do at the end of these eight weeks that you cannot do today?" Good: a concrete skill. Red flag: only "get a certificate" or "experience".
3. "What else are you juggling during this period?" Good: an honest account of exams, projects and other commitments. This is not a trick question; you need to plan around it, especially for part-time internships.
4. "Where do you see this fitting into what you want to do after college?" Good: some thought-through direction, even if uncertain. Uncertainty is fine at this stage.

Learning ability

5. "Tell me about something you taught yourself recently, outside the syllabus." Good: describes how they learnt, not only what. Listen for the sources they used and how they got past being stuck.
6. "Describe a time you got feedback that you disagreed with. What did you do?" Good: listened, tested it, changed or explained their view calmly. Red flag: blames the person giving feedback.
7. "If I gave you a tool you have never used and a deadline of two days, how would you start?" Good: a sensible plan (documentation, a small test, asking a colleague). Red flag: "I would figure it out" with no detail.
8. "What is a mistake you made in a project, and what did you change afterwards?" Good: owns the mistake and describes a specific change.

Role skills

These must be tailored. Ask the candidate to walk through their own work rather than recite definitions.

9. "Walk me through the project on your resume you are proudest of. What exactly did you do?" Good: clear about their personal contribution in a team project. Red flag: cannot explain choices made in their own project.
10. A small live exercise of 10 to 15 minutes: for a content intern, rewrite a weak paragraph; for a data analyst intern, read a small table and say what stands out; for a developer intern, explain what a short piece of code does; for a sales intern, a two-minute pitch of a simple product; for an HR intern, draft a short job post from notes.
11. "How would you check whether your work is correct before you send it?" Good: describes a real checking habit. This single question predicts a lot about rework.
12. "Which tools have you actually used, and for what?" Good: honest about depth. Red flag: a long list with no examples.

The intern interview question generator produces role-specific versions of these questions for dozens of roles.

Work habits and reliability

13. "How do you keep track of what you need to do in a week?" Good: any real system (a list, a calendar, a notebook).
14. "Tell me about a deadline you nearly missed. What happened?" Good: noticed early and communicated. Red flag: never happened, or blamed others entirely.
15. "If you are stuck on a task and your manager is busy, what do you do?" Good: tries a set amount of time, then asks someone else or flags it in writing.
16. "For this role we need you available from 10:00 to 18:00 on weekdays. Does that work with your college schedule?" A plain logistics question that avoids surprises later. For remote roles, also ask about their workspace and internet connection; our remote intern hiring page covers what else to check.

Situational questions

17. "You are halfway through a task and realise the instructions do not make sense. What do you do?" Good: stops, writes down the confusion, asks. Red flag: carries on to "finish on time".
18. "Two people on the team give you conflicting instructions. How do you handle it?" Good: brings both to the manager or the two people together, politely.
19. "A customer or senior person is rude to you in a message. What do you do?" Good: stays calm, does not reply in anger, escalates if needed.
20. "What questions do you have for us?" Good: asks about the work, the mentor or how success is judged. No questions at all is a mild signal of low interest.

Red flags worth noting

• Cannot explain their own resume projects in any detail.
• Speaks negatively about every previous team or teacher.
• Asks only about the certificate and working hours, never about the work.
• Answers that are clearly memorised and fall apart with one follow-up question.
• Commitments (exams, another internship) that make the required hours impossible, not disclosed until asked.

Nervousness is not a red flag. Many students are doing their first ever interview. A friendly opening minute gets you better answers.

A simple intern interview scorecard

Score each area from 1 to 4 immediately after the interview, before discussing with anyone else, and write one line of evidence per score.

The weights are a suggested starting point; adjust them to the role and keep them the same across all candidates for that role. A ready-to-print version is in the interview scorecard template, and you can compare it with the internship evaluation form you will use at the end.

Running the interview well

• Keep it to 30 to 40 minutes. Longer interviews rarely add signal for intern roles. Write a clear posting first with the job description generator so candidates arrive knowing what the role involves.
• Use a short take-home or live task for anything skill-based; see the sibling guide how to screen fresher resumes for the step before.
• Tell candidates when they will hear back, and keep that promise. Delays lose good interns to faster employers.
• Avoid questions about marriage plans, religion, caste or family background. They are irrelevant to the work and can expose you to complaints.
• After the decision, follow the steps in how to evaluate interns so the interview criteria carry into the internship itself.

Ready to fill the role? Hire interns, post an internship free, or read how to hire interns end to end. Our internship hiring checklist covers the steps after the interview. If the role is in analytics or marketing, the sibling guides on hiring a fresher data analyst and hiring a digital marketing intern go deeper on role skills.

Frequently asked questions

How many interview rounds should an internship have?

For most intern roles one interview of 30 to 40 minutes plus a short practical task is enough. Adding more rounds slows the process and loses good candidates to faster employers without adding much signal.

What is the best single question to ask an intern candidate?

Asking them to walk through a project on their resume and explain exactly what they did is one of the most useful, because follow-up questions quickly show whether they understand their own work.

Should intern interviews include a test?

Yes, for any skill-based role. A short live exercise or a small take-home task tells you far more than theory questions. Keep it short, relevant to the real work and unpaid only if it is genuinely brief.

What questions should I avoid asking interns?

Avoid personal questions about marriage, family plans, religion, caste or background. They are not relevant to the work, make candidates uncomfortable and can create legal and reputational risk.

More hiring guides

• Pre-placement offers: a guide for employers
• Hiring interns at an early-stage startup
• Hiring freshers in tier-2 cities
• How to hire a fresher data analyst

Ready to hire? Tell us what you need on Hire Talent, post a job for free, or browse more employer templates and checklists.