The agent across the table has closed more homes this year than half your roster. She agreed to the meeting. She is 20 minutes in, and you have not asked her a single question.
Most team leaders do not interview experienced agents. They pitch them. Forty-five minutes on the CRM, the lead sources, the split, the office. The agent nods, says it sounds great, and goes back to the brokerage she already has.
The other failure is the opposite. The leader pulls up the questions they used to hire a new licensee. Tell me about yourself. Why real estate. The questions tell her you did not look her up, and she decides in the first ten minutes.
Here is the uncomfortable part. You can already see her production. The MLS told you that before you called. What you cannot see is whether she fits, whether she wants to grow, and what would make her move.
That is what the interview is for.
The right interview questions for real estate agents with experience are not a screen. They are a conversation that finds out what the agent needs, and tells you, in her own words, whether your team is the place she gets it. This post gives you the 12 questions we ask, in the order we ask them, what to listen for, and what to do when the meeting ends.
What Questions Should You Ask When Interviewing a Real Estate Agent?
Ask an experienced agent where her business comes from today, what a good year looks like to her, what made her take the meeting, what would have to be true for her to move, where she wants to be in three years, how she takes feedback, what frustrates her about other agents, and what she would need from you in her first week. Then stop talking and listen.
Twelve questions, five groups, in that order. The early questions are easy to answer. The later ones only get a real answer once she trusts the conversation.
If you want the neutral, data-only version, with every question in a table and what each answer indicates, it lives on our reference page: What Questions Should You Ask When Interviewing a Real Estate Agent?
Before the Interview: Know What You Are Checking
An interview without a written profile is a chat. Write the profile first.
Half of it you have already checked. Production, geography, time in the business, markets you can support. Those rules live in your recruiting database, and the MLS answered them before the first call. If she did not pass them, she should not be in the room.
The other half cannot be read from a production report. Blake's own filters are growth mindset, coachable, full time and positive energy. He is blunt about the one that overrides everything: "If you're a jerk, I don't want to work with you. I don't care if you sell a thousand homes. Or you run a hundred person team." And the one that has to be there: "They've got to want to grow."
The interview checks that second list. Every question below is there to surface one of those four things, or to find out what she actually needs.
One more thing to settle first. Who runs the meeting? The recruiter's first call finds the story and books the appointment. The leader runs the interview, because, as Blake puts it, "Human beings leave other human beings. To be led. By other human beings." If you are still splitting those two seats, start with our recruiter job description.
The 12 Questions, in the Order We Ask Them
Her business today. Start here because she can answer without guarding anything, and because the answers tell you more than a production report does.
1. Where did your last ten closings come from? Not "how many." Where. An agent who can name the source of each deal runs a business. An agent who says "all over" is working hard without a system, and is often the agent a team can help the most.
2. What share of your business is repeat and referral? According to the NAR 2026 Member Profile, reported by NAR and HousingWire, the typical REALTOR earned 28% of 2025 business from repeat clients and another 22% from referrals from past clients. If her number is well above that, she has a database that will move with her. If it is well below, she is dependent on whoever is feeding her leads, and you need to know who that is.
3. What does a good year look like to you, in units and in life? The second half of that question is the one that matters. Some agents want 40 closings. Some want 18 and every weekend with their kids. Both can be a fit. Neither is a fit if you assume the wrong one.
Why now. She took the meeting. Something made her say yes.
4. What made you take this meeting? Ask it plainly. The answer is usually one of three things: a relationship with someone on your team, a specific frustration where she is, or curiosity. Each one changes the rest of the conversation.
5. What would have to be true for you to move? This is the question most leaders are afraid of, because the answer might be "a better split." According to Redfin's 2025 Industry Survey of 500 agents across 46 states, 78.4% rated the commission split as very important when choosing a brokerage, 55.2% said the same of brand and reputation, and 54.6% of training and support. Money is on the list for almost everyone. It is rarely the whole list. Let her give you the whole list.
6. What would you miss about where you are now? Every agent leaves something behind. If she cannot name anything, she has already left in her head. If she names the people, write that down. It tells you what she needs from your team on day one.
Growth and coaching. This is where "They've got to want to grow" gets tested.
7. Where do you want your business to be in three years, and what is in the way? Listen for whether the obstacle is something your team solves. If the obstacle is her, she will usually tell you, and that honesty is a good sign.
8. What is the last thing you changed about how you work, and why? An agent who has not changed anything in two years is not going to start because she changed her brokerage. An agent who tried a new follow up routine in March and dropped it in May is coachable. She just needs a system that does not depend on willpower.
9. When did someone last tell you something about your business you did not want to hear? What did you do with it? This is the coachability question. You are not grading the feedback. You are listening for whether she heard it.
How she works with people. The jerk filter, asked politely.
10. Tell me about the best team or office you have ever been part of. What made it work? Her answer is a description of what she wants from you. It is also a tell. If every good thing was about her, keep listening.
11. What frustrates you most about other agents? Everyone has an answer. The content is less important than the tone. An agent who is frustrated by agents who do not pick up the phone is going to be a good teammate. An agent who is frustrated by everyone is going to be frustrated by your team too.
Logistics. Last, because by now she will answer it truthfully.
12. What is in your pipeline right now, and what would you need from us in your first week? Listings under contract, buyers in process, a closing next Friday. Experienced agents arrive with live business, and the first week is a transfer, not a curriculum. Her answer is your onboarding checklist. If you cannot support what she names, say so now.
Questions to Stop Asking
Some questions cost you the hire before you finish asking them.
"Tell me about yourself." You looked her up. Prove it. Open with something specific about her business instead.
"Why should we hire you?" She is not applying for a job. She is deciding whether to move a business that already works. The question flips the table in the wrong direction.
Anything the MLS already answered. Units, volume, price point, areas. Asking tells her you did not do the work.
The split, before she brings it up. Have the answer ready and give it plainly when she asks. Leading with it says the number is your value proposition. It is not. Blake again: "We do have a lot of very cool things and stuff. That is not the value proposition. You are the value proposition."
The cost of getting this wrong goes beyond one lost hire. According to Redfin's 2025 Industry Survey, 13.4% of agents switched brokerages in the past 12 months, 15% planned to switch in the next 12, and 19.4% of those who switched in 2024 were already planning to switch again. Agents who were sold a pitch instead of asked a question leave again. The interview is where that gets decided.
Let the Team Answer the Questions You Cannot
No question on this list can tell her what it feels like to work with you. The room can.
Blake's best recruiting move was not a question. It was an invitation. "The most success I had, for some reason, was Tuesday at 11am, and inviting people to that to go, hey, just come sit in the back, I'll save you a seat in the back, be a fly on the wall, you know?" The agent hears how the agents talk to each other and meets the people she would work next to. Half of your questions get answered by what she sees.
This is also how small teams compete. Blake's answer to "we're too small to recruit top producers" is a story: "When I had a team of 9, I hired 7 ICON agents to a 50-50 split. Within 90 days." Then the detail: "No leads." They came for the people in the room.
So the sequence is: first call with the recruiter, interview with the leader, a seat in the back at the next team meeting, and a second conversation with the leader to decide. Our post on how agents choose a team shows the questions she is bringing to that second conversation. Expect them.
End With a Date, Not a Brochure
The last five minutes decide whether the interview produced anything.
Book the next step in the room. The Tuesday meeting, the second meeting with the leader, a call after she has talked to her spouse. A date on both calendars. "I'll send you some information" is how a good interview turns into nothing.
Speed matters more than most leaders expect. Half of Blake's 2025 hires signed within eight days of their first appointment. The agents who move, move fast, and the ones who are made to wait fill the gap with a competitor's call.
If she says "not now," she has not said no. Our post on handling "I'm happy where I am" covers how to end that conversation with a check-in date. Then write her answers to questions 5, 6 and 12 into the database, in her words, so the next conversation starts where this one ended.
Track two ratios: first calls that become interviews, and interviews that become second meetings. If the first is low, the problem is targeting or the invitation. If the second is low, the problem is usually the interview.
Install the Interview Instead of Winging It
Most teams run the interview from memory. Whatever the leader remembers to ask, whatever they remember afterward, whatever follow up happens before the calendar fills up. The quality of the hire depends on the leader's energy that week.
The Territory Takeover System at Inner Cirql Recruiting Systems installs it instead. Blake brings the recruiting execution: the written profile, the 12 questions, the Tuesday invitation and the second-meeting structure that turns an interview into a decision. Tyler Lewis brings the systems implementation: the pipeline that records what she said she cares about, the next-date automation that makes sure the second meeting gets booked, and the follow up that keeps a "not now" warm until the check-in date arrives. The interview runs the same way in week 40 as in week one.
The agents she meets in the back of that Tuesday meeting are plugged into weekly Inner Cirql agent coaching, built on the thinking behind our Always-On Agent System, which is a large part of why the room is worth showing her. For the strategic overview of recruiting producing agents, read Blake's post on his own site, How to Recruit Experienced Real Estate Agents.
Tools work for you, not instead of you. No system asks the questions. It makes sure the answers are kept and acted on. See how it works at theinnercirql.com/operators/.
The Bottom Line
An interview with an experienced agent is not a screen and it is not a pitch. It is the conversation that finds out what she needs and whether she wants to grow. Check production before the meeting, check fit in it. Ask about her business, why now, growth, people and logistics, in that order. Drop the questions that treat her like a new licensee. Let the room answer what you cannot. Then book the next step before she leaves the chair.
Stop pitching experienced agents and start interviewing them.
If you lead a team or brokerage and your recruiting meetings run on memory, see how the Territory Takeover System works. We install the profile, the questions, the meeting rhythm, the pipeline and the follow up inside your organization, with weekly coaching for your leadership and your agents. One client per protected territory.
FAQ
How long should an interview with an experienced agent take?
Should the team leader or the recruiter interview the agent?
Should I bring up the commission split in the interview?
What are the red flags when interviewing an experienced agent?
How do I interview an agent who has listings and buyers in process?
Do the same questions work for new licensees?
