Cleaner Interview Questions

You can’t run a business without a great Cleaner. They keep your facilities neat and tidy and ensure you and your employees can work in a clean environment. Not only does this make your facility more presentable to customers or clients, but it’s also better for the health and safety of you and your staff.

When looking for a new Cleaner, you should keep an eye out for the following skills and characteristics:

Impeccable attention to detail. Not a single speck of dirt should escape their all-seeing eye.
Ability to work independently as they will often clean your facilities after working hours.
Aware of proper hygiene standards, as well as common health and safety regulations.

Interviewing a Cleaner

Your job ad has attracted a lot of potential candidates for the position. Now it’s time to invite the first few to the next stage: the first interview. That’s exciting! But it also means it’s time for you to start preparing for the interview. After all, what are you planning to ask them? What questions give you the answer that you need to determine whether someone is a great fit or not?

The Cleaner interview questions and answers listed below help you filter out the best candidate for the job. Ask these questions during the first interview, and you will get a good sense of their skills and experience.

Do bear in mind, though, that these questions are relatively general and meant to be used early on in the interview process. You may want to create some additional questions that are more tailored to your specific business and facilities for the later stages.

How to open the job interview

For most people, having a job interview is scary. They can cause a lot of anxiety and make us feel nervous, scared to give the wrong answers or make a bad first impression.

To get the most out of the interview and to help the interviewee out, we suggest you always start your job interview with some positive openers. These questions help the interviewee settle in, plus they’re great to get the conversation flowing.

Job Description available

See our Cashier job description here

For the interview

A positive opener to start

Why did you choose to become Cleaner?

What do you love the most about being a Cleaner?

Behavioral Questions

Tell me about a time you did something that was not in your job description. What happened and why did you decide to do this additional work?
This shows you whether the person is dedicated to helping the company or the employees rather than just ticking off the tasks on their list.
Tell me about a time a task did not go as planned. What happened and how did you respond?
Although the work of a Cleaner might seem straightforward, they can run into unexpected problems or tasks. For example, perhaps someone has clogged up the sink without reporting it to the cleaner/office manager. See how the candidate responds to such a situation.
Tell me about a time you got great satisfaction from a job you did. Why did this particular job give you such satisfaction?
This question allows the candidate to really shine and boast about one of their best career achievements. It also shows you how this candidate might excel at their job.

Soft Skills

Walk me through a normal day on the job for you.
See what steps the candidate takes and in what order. This gives you a good idea of their way of working.
How do you normally start when asked to clean a room?
This shows you how efficient they are in their working and if they know how to best clean a room.
How do you normally report back to your supervisor?
Since the Cleaner generally works outside of regular working hours, they often don’t have a lot of direct contact with their supervisor. This question shows how they normally report back to their supervisor and, therefore, what kind of working relationship you can expect.

Hard Skills

What cleaning tools or products are you most familiar with/have you used in the past?
A specific experience-based question to test their experience in using certain tools and products.
Do you have experience handling chemical/medical waste?
This question may be relevant if you work, say, in a hospital or a facility where chemicals are handled.
Do you have experience with time management software?
Your business might use a clocking system or something similar for employees to track their time. Experience in this field can make the onboarding process easier for you.

Operational / Situational Questions

You are done cleaning the entire building aside from one room, but people are still having a meeting in there. What do you do?
Will they wait for the employees to finish their meeting, or will they just go home without cleaning the room? Will they report it to their supervisor, or just leave it as it is?
You accidentally break the hoover, right at the start of your shift. It’s in the evening and all employees (including your supervisor) have already gone home. What do you do?
This can happen, of course. What’s important is how the candidate handles this situation.
You are alone in the building and someone’s at the door, asking if you can quickly let them in because they forgot something and don’t have their keys on them. You don’t know the person, but it’s a big building, so they might very well be an employee. What do you do?
Such situations can be difficult to handle, as you don’t want to offend a potential employee, but you also don’t want to let a potential thief inside the building. This question gives you an idea of how the candidate handles such a difficult situation.