Questions Healthcare Leaders Should Be Asking

If you are responsible for system-level outcomes, hiring is one of the most powerful design decisions you make.

Every new team member either strengthens your ability to collaborate across professions or challenges already complex systems. That is why understanding interprofessional education, or IPE, matters not only for training and development, but also for hiring.

If you missed the foundational articles, you can read them here:

• What Is Interprofessional Education (IPE)? Practical Information for Healthcare Leaders

• What IPE Is Not: Common Misconceptions Leaders Should Know

Once leaders are clear on what IPE is and is not, it becomes easier to see why it should influence how candidates are evaluated.

Hiring for Collaboration Is a Strategic Design Decision

Interprofessional education prepares learners to be collaborative practice ready. It exposes them to role clarity, communication across professions, shared problem solving, and the responsibility each profession holds in co-designing person-centered care.

When leaders hire individuals who already understand these principles, they are not simply filling a position. They are shaping how collaboration will function across the system.

Hiring for interprofessional readiness is a strategic decision. It reflects how intentionally you are building teams capable of producing system-level outcomes.

Leaders who design collaboration into their hiring practices demonstrate an ability to think beyond individual performance and toward broader organizational impact.

Hiring with interprofessional readiness in mind influences:

• how smoothly new team members engage with other professions from the start

• how confidently they initiate collaboration rather than waiting to be invited

• how naturally they ask questions about workflows and operations across roles

• how their interprofessional lens strengthens or elevates collaboration already present within the department

Professionals who enter practice with an interprofessional mindset tend to look for opportunities to connect expertise rather than work in isolation. They do not simply adapt to the environment. They contribute to shaping it.

These interview questions are not about terminology. They are about mindset.

Hiring for interprofessional readiness is not about finding perfect candidates. It is about intentionally designing teams that can function effectively in complex systems.

Questions Leaders Should Ask During the Hiring Process

The goal is not to test terminology. The goal is to understand how a potential future team member thinks, engages, and collaborates across professions.

1. “Tell me about an interprofessional learning experience you participated in. What made it interprofessional, and what did you learn?”

Listen for references to learning about, from, and with other professions. If a candidate only describes being in the same room with other disciplines, the learning experience may not have been a meaningful interprofessional experience.

2. “How do you understand your role in relation to other professions on a care team?”

This question helps you assess their appreciation for role clarity and interdependence. Strong candidates recognize that collaboration depends on understanding both their own expertise and how it complements others.

3. “Describe a time you collaborated with another profession to solve a problem. What was the outcome?”

Listen for examples grounded in communication, respect, shared planning, and joint problem solving rather than parallel work.

4. “How do you approach situations where your perspective differs from another profession?”

Effective interprofessional collaboration requires curiosity and openness. Defensiveness, hierarchy, or dismissal of other perspectives often signals future challenges in team-based environments.

5. “How do you plan to continue using your interprofessional skills in practice?”

Look for a commitment to ongoing learning and reflection. Interprofessional competence is not static. It develops over time and across settings.

Ready to Strengthen Collaboration Through Hiring?

Leaders often hear that it is important to hire for “fit,” not simply to fill a vacancy.

Fit is typically defined in terms of departmental culture or organizational values.

Culture can be intentionally shaped.

Interprofessional collaboration can become part of what defines “fit” within your organization.

As more new graduates enter the workforce with formal exposure to interprofessional education, leaders have an opportunity to begin asking different questions. Not only about clinical competence, but about collaborative readiness.

When you hire for interprofessional readiness, you are not only strengthening day-to-day teamwork. You are building a department that is more likely to engage in system-level initiatives with motivation and shared ownership.

Team members who already value collaboration are more inclined to participate in cross-departmental projects, quality improvement efforts, and redesign work. The buy-in is not forced. It is already present.

If you are accountable for system-level outcomes, start by assessing how you are hiring for collaboration. Small shifts in how you hire can meaningfully influence how collaboration unfolds across your department and how prepared your team is to engage beyond it.

Two ways to take the next step:

1. Take the Interprofessional Collaboration Readiness Assessment for Healthcare Leaders Use it to reflect on how intentionally collaboration is designed within your current teams, including your hiring practices. Message me and I will send it right over.

2. Partner with me to strengthen your hiring and collaboration strategy. I work one-to-one with healthcare leaders to design collaboration that is supported by structure rather than sustained by personal effort, building high-performing interprofessional teams that support system-level outcomes.

Let’s Collaborate for Health. We are better together.