Unilever HireVue Interview: Questions, Format, and a Worked Answer

Unilever runs one of the best-known early-career processes that uses HireVue. Applicants play online games first, then the shortlist records a video interview. Candidates report 3 to 5 questions with 30 seconds to think and up to 2 minutes to answer. No retakes on the scored questions.

Unilever's questions ask about purpose more than most employers do. Expect a question about what you care about and how it connects to the company. This page has the reported questions, what each tests, and a worked answer.

Want a run-through first? HireVue practice gives you the same timed format with your answers scored, free.

The clock and the format are the same HireVue product every employer uses. The timing guide covers what happens when the timer runs out, and how HireVue scoring works covers what the recording is scored on.

Unilever's stated values are integrity, responsibility, respect, and pioneering, and the company talks about purpose constantly. The reported questions test pioneering and purpose most often.

• Purpose. Something you care about, shown through what you have done about it.
• Pioneering. A time you tried something new and saw it through.
• Responsibility. Owning an outcome, including a bad one.
• Working with others. A group result with your part named.
• Motivation for Unilever. A reason tied to a brand, a market, or a function you know.

Build one story for each line above. Every question below is asking for one of them.

These are the questions candidates report from recent Unilever screens, with the competency each one is built to test. Your set will be a mix of these and close variants.

1. What is something you care about, and what have you done about it? (Purpose)
2. Why Unilever, and why this function? (Motivation)
3. Tell me about a time you tried something new that might not have worked. (Pioneering)
4. Describe a time you took responsibility for a result that went wrong. (Responsibility)
5. Tell me about a time you worked with people who were different from you. (Respect, teamwork)
6. Describe a Unilever brand you use and what you would change about it. (Consumer awareness, ideas)

For the shape of each answer type, see HireVue interview questions by format. For the answer structure itself, the STAR method guide has worked examples.

Question: "What is something you care about, and what have you done about it?"

"Food waste. It started in my student house, where we were throwing out about a third of what we bought. I put a whiteboard on the fridge with what was in it and when it would go off, and we cut what we threw out by more than half in a month. That got me curious about the bigger version. Last year I volunteered with a group that collects surplus from supermarkets, and I ran the Tuesday route for six months. What I learned is that most waste is a logistics problem, not a caring problem. People want to do the right thing. The system has to make it easy. That is the part of consumer goods I want to work on."

Why it scores: Starts small and real, scales up, has a number, and ends with a view that connects to the company's work. About 65 seconds spoken.

Specific to Unilever:

• Prepare a purpose answer with actions in it. Unilever asks what you care about, and caring without doing scores low.
• Know one Unilever brand well enough to have an opinion about it.
• Do not treat the games as the hard part. Candidates report the video interview is where most of the shortlist is cut.

For any HireVue:

1. Day 1. Write one story per competency in the list above. Two or three sentences each: the situation, what you decided, what happened.
2. Day 2. Say each story out loud on a two-minute timer. Most people run long the first time. Cut until each one ends on the result with time to spare.
3. Day 3. Run the reported questions cold, in one sitting, no notes. Then set up the room: quiet, camera at eye level, light on your face, wired internet if you have it.

The full setup checklist and a five-day version of this plan are in the free HireVue practice guide.

After you submit, results often take a week or more. Here is how to follow up after an interview if the window passes, and a salary negotiation email for when the offer comes. Applying for a move up where you already work? See promotion interview questions.

Company guides in this series, each with the reported questions and a worked answer:

• Goldman Sachs HireVue (investment banking)
• JPMorgan Chase HireVue (investment banking)
• Morgan Stanley HireVue (investment banking)
• Citi HireVue (banking)
• Bank of America HireVue (banking)
• Barclays HireVue (banking)
• Deutsche Bank HireVue (banking)
• Bain & Company HireVue (consulting)
• Boston Consulting Group HireVue (consulting)
• Deloitte HireVue (consulting and professional services)
• EY HireVue (professional services)
• PepsiCo HireVue (consumer goods)
• Amazon HireVue (technology and operations)
• IBM HireVue (technology)
• Boeing HireVue (aerospace and engineering)
• Hilton HireVue (hospitality)
• Delta Air Lines HireVue (airlines)
• McDonald's HireVue (restaurants)
• Shell HireVue (energy)
• PwC HireVue (accounting and professional services)
• Accenture HireVue (consulting and technology services)
• Vodafone HireVue (telecommunications)
• Kraft Heinz HireVue (consumer packaged goods)
• Wells Fargo HireVue (banking)
• BlackRock HireVue (asset management)
• UBS HireVue (banking)
• United Airlines HireVue (airlines)
• Emirates HireVue (airlines)
• Marriott HireVue (hospitality)
• Johnson & Johnson HireVue (health care)
• PNC HireVue (banking)
• Kaiser Permanente HireVue (health care)
• KKR HireVue (private equity)
• Keurig Dr Pepper HireVue (consumer goods)
• Target HireVue (retail)
• Walmart HireVue (retail)
• Nike HireVue (sportswear)
• Macy's HireVue (retail)