By Johnny Campbell
Introduction
Influence is only visible when authority was absent. If a candidate could have simply told someone to do the thing — because they owned the budget, held the headcount, or sat above them on the org chart — nothing was tested. The competency lives entirely in the situations where “because I said so” wasn’t on the table: the peer in another function whose roadmap you needed a slot on, the finance director who had already said no twice, the engineering lead who thought your project was a distraction. That’s where you find out whether someone can move a person who has every right to ignore them.
Most interviewers assess this badly, and they do it in three predictable ways. The first is confusing charisma in the room with influence in the workplace. A candidate who is warm, quick and easy to talk to for fifty minutes has demonstrated that they interview well, not that they can shift a sceptical stakeholder over six weeks. The second is accepting “I got buy-in” as an answer, without pressing on who pushed back or what specifically changed their mind — new data, a changed proposal, a private conversation before the meeting, or simply attrition. The third failure is never asking about a time the candidate lost. Everyone’s prepared influence story ends in a win; the interesting evidence sits in the attempt that failed, because that’s where you learn whether they understood why the other person held their position.
This page covers 24 interview questions across four capability areas: Changing Minds Without Authority, Coalition Building, Navigating Resistance and Failed Persuasion, and Reading What the Other Side Actually Wants. Every question comes with probes that get you past the rehearsed version, plus a situational scenario per area, red flags worth scoring against, and guidance on running this competency in a structured interview, where it is unusually vulnerable to interviewer bias.
Changing Minds Without Authority
What good looks like
A strong candidate can name a specific person who held real power over the outcome and did not have to agree with them, and describe exactly what changed that person’s mind — new information, a reframed ask, a private conversation, evidence of cost. They track the disagreement across time rather than compressing it into a single meeting, and they can state the other person’s original objection in that person’s own terms, not as a strawman they defeated.
Behavioural questions
- Tell me about someone who was firmly against your idea and later backed it.
- Who was this person, and what was their role relative to yours?
- What did they say the first time they turned you down?
- What specifically changed between that conversation and the one where they backed it?
- How long did it take, and who else knew you were still working on them?
- Walk me through the last time you needed something from a team that didn’t report to you and had no obligation to help.
- Which team, and what exactly did you need from them?
- What was in it for them to say yes — or was there nothing in it for them?
- Who on that team did you go to first, and why them?
- What did you get in the end, and how close was it to what you originally asked for?
- Describe a situation where you changed a decision that had already been made.
- Who had made the decision, and what was it?
- What was their reasoning at the time they made it?
- What did you bring to the conversation that they didn’t already have?
- What was the new decision, and who else had to sign off on reversing the old one?
- Tell me about a time you had to persuade someone more senior than you.
- Who was the person, and what was the seniority gap?
- What was their initial reaction when you raised it?
- What did you do to make the conversation safe for them to change their mind in, especially if anyone else was in the room?
- What did they end up deciding, and did they credit your input afterwards?
- Walk me through how you got a project prioritised that wasn’t on anyone else’s list.
- Whose list was it missing from, and why had it been left off?
- What did you do first — build a case, find an ally, or go straight to whoever owned the list?
- What resistance did you hit, and from whom specifically?
- Where does the project sit now, and who ended up resourcing it?
- Describe a time you convinced someone to do something that made their own job harder.
- What was the ask, and why did it make their job harder specifically?
- How did they react when they realised the cost to them?
- What did you offer, concede, or acknowledge to get them there?
- Did they actually follow through, and how do you know?
- Tell me about an idea of yours that took more than one conversation to land.
- How many conversations did it take, and with whom?
- What was different about the conversation that finally worked, compared with the first one?
- What did you drop or change about the idea along the way?
- Who eventually said yes, and what tipped them?
Situational scenario
You need a product team in another division to build an integration your customer has been promised for next quarter. The team’s lead has told you twice that it isn’t on their roadmap and won’t be for two more quarters. You have no authority over their backlog, and your manager has told you this is your problem to solve, not theirs.
Walk me through what you do from here.
Then introduce a constraint: “The team lead tells you privately that even if you get their VP to mandate it, they’ll deprioritise the quality of the work because they resent being overruled. Does that change your approach?”
What to listen for
whether they go over the lead’s head as a first move or a last one, whether they address the resentment directly or ignore it, and whether they can articulate what the lead was actually protecting by saying no twice.
Coalition Building
What good looks like
A strong candidate sequences people deliberately rather than presenting the same pitch to whoever’s available first. They can name who they spoke to before the decision-maker, what each person’s stake was, and why that order rather than another. They hold a coalition together when it starts to fray — naming who pulled back and what they did about it — rather than treating early agreement as the end of the work.
Behavioural questions
- Tell me about a time you built support for something before you took it to a decision-maker.
- Who was the eventual decision-maker, and why did you not go to them first?
- Who did you talk to before that, and in what order?
- What did each of those conversations actually change about your pitch?
- What did the decision-maker’s meeting look like by the time you got there?
- Walk me through who you spoke to first the last time you needed a group to agree on something contested.
- Why that person first — what made them the right starting point?
- What was their reaction, and did you need to adjust anything before speaking to the next person?
- Who did you deliberately leave until last, and why?
- Where did the group land, and who was still holding out at the end?
- Describe a situation where you needed sign-off from several people who wanted different things.
- Who were they, and what did each one specifically want?
- Where did their interests directly conflict with each other?
- How did you sequence or frame the ask so it worked for all of them?
- What did you have to trade off, and who ended up least satisfied?
- Tell me about a time you brought in someone else to make your case for you.
- Who did you bring in, and why were they more likely to land it than you?
- What did you ask them to say, specifically?
- What was the risk of using someone else’s voice instead of your own?
- Did it work, and would you use the same person again?
- Walk me through a decision where you were outnumbered at the start.
- What was the decision, and how many people were against you?
- Who did you move first, and how?
- What was the turning point where the numbers shifted?
- Where did the decision land in the end?
- Describe a time you had to keep a group aligned after the initial agreement started to fray.
- Who pulled away from the agreement, and what did they say had changed?
- How did you find out — did they tell you, or did you notice?
- What did you do to bring them back, specifically?
- Did the group stay together through delivery, or did it fall apart later anyway?
Situational scenario
You want to change a process that touches four teams, none of which you manage. Two of the teams will clearly benefit. One will have to do more work for no visible upside. The fourth has no strong opinion yet but is influential enough that their view will sway the others once they form one.
Walk me through who you talk to, in what order, and what you say to each.
Then introduce a constraint: “The team that has to do more work for no upside finds out you’ve already spoken to the other two and feels blindsided. How do you handle that conversation?”
What to listen for
whether they had a deliberate reason for the order they chose or just went to the easiest conversations first, whether they anticipated the blindsided reaction before it happened, and whether they have a real answer for what’s in it for the team taking on more work.
Navigating Resistance and Failed Persuasion
What good looks like
A strong candidate has a real failure on hand, not a near-miss dressed up as one, and can explain the other person’s position well enough that it sounds reasonable rather than stubborn. They can point to the specific objection that beat them, what they tried in response, and what they would do differently now — a genuine change in approach, not a restated commitment to try harder.
Behavioural questions
- Tell me about a time you failed to persuade someone, and what you’d do differently now.
- Who was the person, and what were you trying to get them to do?
- What was their stated reason for refusing?
- What did you try, and at what point did you know it wasn’t working?
- What specifically would you do differently if you had that conversation again today?
- Describe the strongest objection anyone has ever raised to a proposal of yours.
- Who raised it, and what exactly did they say?
- What was your first response, in the moment?
- Did the objection hold up, or did you find a flaw in it afterwards?
- What did you change about the proposal, if anything, because of it?
- Tell me about a time you dropped your position because the other person was right.
- What was your position, and what was theirs?
- What specifically did they say or show you that changed your mind?
- How did you signal to them that you’d changed your position — did you say so explicitly?
- What happened to the relationship afterwards?
- Walk me through a situation where someone agreed with you in the room and then didn’t follow through.
- Who was it, and what had they agreed to?
- When did you first notice they weren’t following through?
- What did you do about it — did you raise it directly?
- What do you think was really going on when they agreed in the room?
- Who in your last organisation was hardest to move, and why?
- What made that person specifically hard to move — what was their default position?
- Give me a concrete example of trying to move them and what happened.
- Did you ever succeed with them, and if so, how?
- What did you learn about them that you’d apply to someone similar in future?
- Describe a time you had to persuade someone who didn’t trust you.
- Why didn’t they trust you — what was the history there?
- What did you do to address the trust problem before you made your case?
- What was their reaction when you first raised what you needed?
- Did the trust improve afterwards, and how do you know?
Situational scenario
You’ve made the same proposal to a peer three times over two months and been turned down three times, each time with a slightly different reason. You still believe the proposal is right. You have one more natural opportunity to raise it before the decision window closes for the year.
Walk me through what you do with that last opportunity.
Then introduce a constraint: “On this last attempt, they give you a reason that’s clearly not their real objection — you can tell because it doesn’t match anything they’ve said before. What do you do in that moment?”
What to listen for
whether they treat three different reasons as a shifting story worth investigating or just three separate objections to argue past, whether they name the pattern to the person directly, and whether they have a plan if this last attempt fails too.
Reading What the Other Side Actually Wants
What good looks like
A strong candidate can state what the other party stood to lose, in that party’s own terms, before explaining what they themselves wanted. They notice when the stated objection isn’t the real one and go looking for what’s underneath it. When they get new information about someone’s actual concern, the proposal itself changes — not just the pitch wrapped around it.
Behavioural questions
- Tell me about a time you realised partway through that you’d misread what someone cared about.
- What did you originally think they cared about, and why?
- What tipped you off that you’d got it wrong?
- What did you find out they actually cared about instead?
- What did you change about your approach once you knew?
- Walk me through what the other side stood to lose in your last significant negotiation.
- What was the negotiation, and who was on the other side?
- What specifically were they protecting — budget, headcount, reputation, precedent?
- How did you find that out — did they tell you, or did you have to work it out?
- How did what they stood to lose shape the deal you eventually landed?
- Describe a situation where the stated objection wasn’t the real one.
- What did they say the objection was?
- What tipped you off that it wasn’t the whole story?
- How did you get to what the real objection was?
- Did addressing the real one change the outcome?
- Tell me about a time you reshaped a proposal after hearing someone’s concerns.
- What was the original proposal, and whose concerns changed it?
- What specifically did they say that made you reconsider?
- What did the reshaped version look like compared with the original?
- Did the person who raised the concern end up supporting it?
- Walk me through how you found out what a stakeholder needed before you made your pitch.
- Who was the stakeholder, and how did you go about finding out what they needed?
- What did you learn that you wouldn’t have known from their public position?
- How did that change what you actually pitched?
- Would the pitch have worked without that groundwork — why or why not?
Situational scenario
A stakeholder you need sign-off from has raised a technical objection to your proposal. You’ve addressed the technical point twice, with data, and they still haven’t approved it. You suspect the stated objection isn’t the actual reason, but you have no evidence for what the real one is.
Walk me through how you find out what’s actually going on.
Then introduce a constraint: “When you finally ask them directly, they deny there’s anything else going on and repeat the original technical objection. What do you do next?”
What to listen for
whether they keep pushing on the stated objection or go looking elsewhere for the real one, whether they use anyone else’s relationship with the stakeholder to get a different read, and whether they can describe what they’d actually change about the proposal if the real objection turned out to be something else entirely.
Red flags to watch for when assessing Influence and Persuasion
Every influence story ends in agreement. No example of being unable to move someone suggests either a thin sample of real stakeholder work or a history that’s been tidied up for the interview.
Persuasion is described entirely as building a better argument. The candidate talks about data, decks and logic, with no attention to what the other party needed, feared or was accountable for.
The resistance has no face. “There was some pushback from the business” is not an answer. Candidates who genuinely did the work can name the role, the objection and the moment it shifted.
Authority is smuggled in. Halfway through the story it emerges that the candidate owned the budget, ran the team, or escalated to someone who did. That’s a decision-rights story, not an influence story.
The other party is characterised as irrational. Stakeholders described as blockers, dinosaurs or politically motivated — with no attempt to explain their position on its own terms — tells you how this candidate will talk about your stakeholders in twelve months.
Nothing about their own proposal changed. If the candidate never adjusted the ask, the scope, the timing or the framing, they were waiting people out, not persuading them.
How to Use These Questions in a Structured Interview
Score against a 1/3/5 anchored rubric and write the anchors before you interview anyone. A 1 is a story with no identifiable resistance, or one where the candidate held positional authority. A 3 is a genuine influence situation with a clear outcome, but the candidate can’t explain what specifically moved the other person. A 5 names the resisting party, states their position sympathetically, identifies the specific thing that changed their mind, and shows the candidate’s own proposal adapting in response. The opener matters far less than the probes — every candidate arrives with a rehearsed influence story, and three questions do most of the work of getting underneath it: who disagreed with you, what did they say the first time they said no, and what was different the second time you asked.
Calibrate hard on this competency, because it is more exposed to interviewer bias than almost any other — interviewers routinely score their own rapport with the candidate rather than the evidence produced, and a persuasive interviewee feels like a persuasive colleague. Force your panel to write down the evidence before the score, and compare notes on specifics rather than impressions. See how Interview Intelligence solves this → by capturing how each interviewer actually probed and scored, so the gap between rapport and evidence becomes visible before it costs you a hire.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between influence and manipulation in an interview answer?
Influence leaves the other party better informed and free to decide; manipulation depends on them not having the full picture. Listen for what the candidate disclosed and what they withheld. A strong answer includes the counter-arguments they put in front of the other person voluntarily. A concerning answer involves controlling who saw what information, timing an ask for when someone was under pressure, or framing a choice so the alternative looked worse than it was.
How do I assess influence and persuasion in junior candidates with no stakeholder experience?
Move the context, keep the competency. Junior candidates have persuaded flatmates, sports teams, project groups, part-time managers and customers. The same questions work unchanged in those settings. What you're scoring is the same thing: did they identify what the other person wanted, did they adapt their approach, can they describe an attempt that failed? Don't lower the bar on reasoning quality just because the stakes were smaller.
Should I use a role-play or presentation exercise instead of interview questions?
Use both, but not interchangeably. A live exercise shows you how someone argues under time pressure with a stranger. It tells you almost nothing about persuasion that unfolds over weeks, which is what most roles actually require. Behavioural questions cover the long game; an exercise covers the room. If you run only one, run the questions — the failure mode of exercises is rewarding performance confidence.
How many influence questions should I include in a single interview?
Three or four, with room to probe each one properly. Ten questions asked shallowly produce ten rehearsed answers. Pick one opener from each capability area, then spend the time on follow-ups. If you're running a panel, split the areas across interviewers so nobody hears the same story twice and you get independent evidence on different aspects of the competency.
Is influence and persuasion a different competency for sales roles?
The evidence bar is higher, not different. Salespeople persuade for a living, so a competent story is table stakes. Push on internal influence instead — getting deal support from legal, product or delivery teams who have no revenue target. That's where you separate people who can run a sales process from people who can move an organisation.