Best interview questions for your hiring process
Gardener Interview questions
A Gardener is tasked with keeping the grounds around your buildings clean, tidy, presentable, and well-maintained. From cutting the grass to nurturing trees to a bit of landscaping and garden design. The right candidate for the job will help ensure your premises are always looking spotless and inviting to visitors, customers, and employees alike!
Typical Gardener skills and characteristics to look for in a candidate include:
- Great attention to detail and an eye that can easily spot an uncut blade of grass on a football field
- Physically able to be on their feet for long periods of time and not afraid to get their hands dirty (literally!)
- Ability to work independently as they will (most likely) be the only Gardener in your team
Interviewing a Gardener
It can be difficult to come up with the right questions to ask a Gardener during an interview. After all, what skills should you look for and what experience should they have for the job? That’s where our interview questions below come in to help.
We’ve created a list of Gardener interview questions and answers that are specifically tailored to this role. Asking these questions helps you uncover the right answers and skills that are needed for this position. By asking these questions early on during the interview process, you quickly filter out the best candidates for the job.
How to open the job interview
Job interviews can be absolutely nerve-wracking. There’s a good chance your candidate will be anxious, and this can have a negative impact on how they answer your questions. Even if they know the correct answer to a question, when overcome with nerves, they might actually forget or fail to properly articulate the answer. This isn’t helping them, and it isn’t helping you, either.
That’s why you should always start the job interview with a few simple questions to break the ice and help the candidate settle in.
Best interview questions for your hiring process
See our Gardener job description hereFor the interview
A positive opener to start
What do you love the most about being a Gardener?
Why did you decide to become a Gardener?
Behavioral Questions
Tell me about a time you encountered an infestation problem. What did you do?
Tell me about a time something didn’t go as planned (e.g. a new tree isn’t growing as it should) and how you handled the situation.
A Gardener can design, plan, and landscape the grounds to perfection, but as they say, nature will always run its course. See how your candidate responds to situations not going as planned.
Tell me about your proudest achievement when working as a Gardener.
This is their time to shine and boast about when they did an excellent job at something. It gives you an idea of what to expect if you were to hire them.
Soft Skills
What does a normal day on the job look like for you? Walk me through the process.
Get a sense of the candidate’s way of working and how they normally go about their day.
How do you ensure you meet your supervisor’s expectations?
A Gardener has to be able to work independently, but they will still have a supervisor who lays out expectations, goals, or specific tasks.
Give me an example of your great attention to detail.
Attention to detail is one of the most important skills for a Gardener to have. Let the candidate demonstrate that they possess this skill with an example.
Hard Skills
Can you name some gardening tools and equipment that you have worked with in the past?
A practical question to get to know their experience handling tools and equipment necessary to perform their job.
What do you know about environmentally friendly/sustainable gardening practices?
Sustainable gardening is the future as people are becoming more aware of the negative impact we have on our planet and environment. Stay ahead of the curb with a candidate who knows how to practice environmentally-friendly gardening.
Do you have any experience in landscaping and garden design?
This question is optional as it depends on the specific tasks you have lined up for your candidate. If your Gardener will also be responsible for garden design and landscaping, you should ask this question during the interview.
Do you hold any certificates or extra credentials?
This question shows you whether they have any relevant experience or certification.
Operational / Situational Questions
Imagine, a heavy storm is forecast to hit our location over the weekend. What prevention measures do you put in place to prepare our premises for this?
We can’t control the weather, but we can prepare for its impact. See how your candidate would handle such a situation.
Imagine you discover we have rats in our garden. What do you do?
Infestations like this are common in gardens. Find out how the candidate handles the situation.
Imagine, we give you full freedom and a budget to design and create the garden completely according to your vision. How would you go about handling this project?
This question really gives the candidate a chance to be creative and show what they have in store for you and your business.
Start hiring and prepare your interview
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This is a common problem your candidate will most likely have encountered before in their line of work. See how they respond to such a situation/what kind of process they follow.