Nursery interviews are less formal than most, and that catches people out. There is usually no panel, no competency framework, and no scoring grid. There is a manager who needs to know three things: can you keep children safe, will parents trust you, and will the rest of the team want to work with you.
Most of the questions below are variations on those three.
The safeguarding questions
These are not optional and they are not a formality. Get them wrong and nothing else you say will rescue the interview.
"What would you do if a child disclosed something to you?"
A strong answer has a shape: listen without leading, do not promise confidentiality, record it in the child's own words as soon as possible, and pass it to the designated safeguarding lead immediately. Say that you would not investigate it yourself.
The common failure is promising to keep it secret, or saying you would "look into it". Both are wrong, and both are heard as a warning.
"What would you do if you had a concern about a colleague?"
Say that you would follow the setting's whistleblowing or allegations procedure and raise it with the manager, or with the designated lead if the concern is about the manager. What the interviewer is testing is whether you would stay quiet to keep the peace.
"What would you do if a child arrived with an unexplained bruise?"
Record what you observed factually, without speculating about cause, ask open-ended rather than leading questions if the child volunteers anything, and report it. Note the difference between recording an observation and conducting an investigation.
The practice questions
"Tell me about your key person work."
Talk about actual children, anonymised. What you noticed, what you did about it, what changed. Generic answers about "building relationships" say nothing. A story about a child who would not settle at lunchtime, and what you tried, and what eventually worked, says everything.
"How do you plan activities?"
The answer they want is that you plan around what the children are interested in and where they are developmentally, rather than working from a fixed weekly timetable. Mention observation feeding into planning. If you have run a two-year-old progress check, say so.
"How would you support a child with additional needs?"
Describe adapting your own practice first, then working with the setting's SENCo and the graduated approach: assess, plan, do, review. Saying you would "refer them to the SENCo" and stopping there is the answer that loses marks, because it reads as handing the child over.
"How do you handle a difficult conversation with a parent?"
Concrete example, calmly told. Interviewers are listening for whether you get defensive.
The questions behind the questions
"Why are you leaving?"
Be honest but not bitter. "The setting went through three managers in a year and the planning stopped being followed up" is fine. A character assassination of your last manager is not, because the interviewer is imagining how you will describe them in twelve months.
"Where do you see yourself in a few years?"
If you want to be a room leader, say so. Settings recruiting permanently would rather hire someone with a direction than someone who might leave when they work out what they want.
What to ask them
The questions you ask are part of the interview, and most candidates waste them.
Worth asking:
- What is the staff turnover in this room, and why did the last person leave?
- How many Level 3s are in the room, and what happens to ratio when one is off?
- Who is the designated safeguarding lead, and how are concerns escalated?
- What does supervision look like, and how often?
- Will you fund further qualifications?
- When was the last inspection and what came out of it?
The turnover question is the most useful one you can ask. If a room has churned through four people in a year, that is information about the room and not about the four people.
Practical things that decide it
Bring your certificates and your DBS. If you are on the update service, bring the number.
Ask to see the room you would be working in, and pay attention to the staff already in it. A room where nobody makes eye contact with the manager is telling you something.
Expect to spend time with the children. Many settings run a paid trial session or an observation as part of the process, and it is often what actually decides the outcome. Warmth with children cannot be faked for an hour, and it does not need to be.
We only place permanent roles, so every interview we arrange is for a job with a team rather than a shift. Register with us and we will tell you what the setting is really like before you take a day off to visit it.