Questions to Ask When Hiring Cleaners for Your Cleaning Business
The short answer: this guide is for maid service and residential cleaning company owners hiring cleaners onto their teams. (If you are a homeowner choosing someone to clean your own house, the questions you need are different.) The best questions to ask a cleaner candidate put them inside a real visit: the lockbox code that does not work at 8:30, the dog loose in a home where the note says it is crated, the $20 bill under the couch cushion. Ask those, write down what the candidate says they would do first, and score it. Below are 12 of those questions, each with what a strong and a weak answer sound like, plus how to run the paid trial clean that checks the cleaning itself.
Here is why the questions matter. Say your company runs 60 recurring homes on a two-week cycle at $170 a visit. That is about $265,000 a year. Lose five of those homes because one cleaner kept missing the details a homeowner notices, and $22,100 a year walks out the door. Put your own numbers in. Recurring customers leave quietly, and the cleaner is usually the reason they give.
Why the trial clean and the interview both miss things
Most cleaning companies hire with a short interview and a paid trial clean. The trial clean shows you whether the candidate can get a bathroom to your standard. It is worth doing. It happens with a team lead standing next to the candidate, in a home with no surprises, on a day that runs to plan.
The visits that cost you customers do not run to plan. The team is 40 minutes behind at the second home of five. The homeowner is out and the note is wrong. Something breaks. The interview is where you hear how a candidate handles those moments before a customer finds out.
Our guide to hiring a house cleaner covers the two instincts the seat runs on: reading the home before starting and handling the homeowner who is home. The questions below cover the rest of the day: getting in, working as a team on a clock, and the trust a homeowner gives you when they hand over a key.
How to run the interview
Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order. Read the scenario, then stop talking. Write down the first thing they say they would do before you react or follow up. The first move is the answer. What they add after you nod is them reading you.
Score each answer 1 for a weak first move, 2 for mixed and 3 for strong. Score before you talk about the candidate with anyone. Plenty of excellent cleaners are quiet in an interview, so score the move and let the delivery go. Our guide to interview questions for trades hires explains why this format works better than "tell me about yourself".
Questions about the home
1. "It's 8:30 a.m. You're at the first home of the day. The lockbox code on the job sheet doesn't work, and the homeowner isn't answering. The next home is at 11:00."
Strong: calls the office right away so someone can reach the homeowner, waits a set time the office agrees to, and lets the office decide whether to move on to the next home early.
Weak: leaves after five minutes without telling anyone, or waits an hour in the driveway without calling.
2. "You open the door. The note says the dog will be crated, and the dog is loose and barking at you. You're alone for the first few minutes."
Strong: steps back out, closes the door and calls the office or the homeowner before going in.
Weak: goes in and tries to crate the dog on their own.
3. "You're dusting a shelf and knock a glass vase to the floor. It breaks. The homeowner is at work."
Strong: picks up the pieces safely, photographs the damage, calls the team lead or the office that day and leaves a short note for the homeowner if the office agrees.
Weak: cleans it up and hopes nobody notices it is gone.
4. "The homeowner left a note asking you to clean inside the oven today. It's not on the job sheet, and the visit is already full."
Strong: tells the team lead, who calls the office to see whether it can be added and priced. The oven waits until the office says yes.
Weak: skips it without telling anyone, or does it and runs the rest of the day late.
Questions about the team and the day
5. "Your team lead cleans bathrooms in a different order than the checklist you were trained on. It's your second week."
Strong: follows the lead on the visit, then asks the lead or the office afterward which order is right so they learn one way.
Weak: argues about it in the customer's bathroom, or quietly does it their own way.
6. "You and your partner are 40 minutes behind at the second home of five. Your partner is slower than you and seems stressed. What do you do?"
Strong: finishes their own rooms and then helps with the partner's, tells the team lead or the office about the time so the later homes can be warned, and keeps it friendly.
Weak: finishes their own rooms and waits outside, or cuts corners on the details to catch up.
7. "At 12:30 p.m., you're stuck in traffic. The next home's arrival window closes at 1:00, and you'll be 20 minutes late."
Strong: calls the office at 12:30 so the office can tell the homeowner before the window closes.
Weak: says nothing and hopes the homeowner does not notice, or texts the homeowner from the road without telling the office.
8. "At the third home, you run out of glass cleaner. There are two more homes after this one."
Strong: tells the team lead now, uses a safe product from the caddy that works on the surfaces, and makes sure the caddy gets restocked before the next day.
Weak: grabs a product from the homeowner's cabinet, or skips the glass for the rest of the day.
Questions about trust
9. "You're vacuuming under the couch cushions and find a $20 bill. The homeowner isn't home."
Strong: leaves it somewhere visible, like the kitchen counter, and mentions it in a note or to the office.
Weak: puts it back under the cushion without a word, or pockets it.
10. "A recurring homeowner says, 'I love your work. Why don't I pay you cash directly to come on your off weekends?'"
Strong: thanks them, says they cannot take work outside the company, and tells the office about the request so the office can offer the extra visits.
Weak: takes the side work and keeps it to themselves.
11. "At 3:00 p.m., on the way to your last home, you can't remember whether you locked the back door at the home before. It's 20 minutes behind you."
Strong: calls the office right away so someone can check or go back, even though it means an awkward call.
Weak: assumes it is locked and says nothing.
12. "The homeowner is home and asks you to move a heavy dresser so you can vacuum behind it. The team rule is no moving heavy furniture."
Strong: explains the rule kindly, vacuums what they can reach, and mentions the request to the team lead or the office.
Weak: moves the dresser to keep the homeowner happy.
Test the cleaning separately
Cleaning skill, pace and your order of work can all be taught, and the interview cannot measure them. Test them directly with a paid trial clean:
- Pay the candidate for 2 to 3 hours alongside a team lead, in a real home or your own office.
- Hand them your checklist and let them work it without coaching for the first hour.
- Check the details a homeowner notices first (baseboards, mirrors, the top of the fridge, the corners of the shower) before you check the clock.
A candidate who cleans a little slower and answers the trust questions well can be trained to your pace. A fast candidate who pockets the $20 cannot be trained out of it.
Tell them what the job really is
Many new cleaners leave in the first few weeks because the job was different from what they pictured. In Jobvite's 2018 Job Seeker Nation survey, almost 30 percent of job seekers said they had left a job within the first 90 days, and 43 percent of them said the day-to-day role was not what they expected.
Tell every candidate the real day before the offer: the start time, the number of homes, the drive time between them, the physical work, the pay and how it is calculated, and what happens when a home runs long. The candidates who drop out after hearing it would have dropped out in week three.
Questions to skip
"Do you like to clean?" Every candidate says yes. The scenario questions tell you more.
"Do you have kids?" or "Who watches your children?" Ask every candidate whether they can work the scheduled days and hours, and leave the reasons out of it.
"Can you lift 50 pounds?" asked only of some candidates. If the job has a physical requirement, write it into the job description and ask everyone the same way.
Anything about age, health, religion or national origin. Keep every question tied to the work of the seat, and ask every candidate the same ones. If you are unsure whether a question is allowed where you hire, check with an employment attorney.
Frequently asked questions
What questions should I ask a cleaner in an interview?
Scenario questions from a real day: a lockbox code that does not work, a loose dog, a broken vase, a homeowner offering side work, a team running 40 minutes behind. Ask every candidate the same questions and write down what they would do first.
What are good house cleaner interview questions for a cleaning company?
The best ones test trust and teamwork as well as cleaning: what the candidate does with cash found in a home, how they tell the office they are running late, and what they do when a homeowner asks for work outside the job sheet.
How do I test a cleaner before hiring?
Run a paid trial clean of 2 to 3 hours alongside a team lead, against your checklist. Check the details first and the pace second. Use the interview questions for the moments the trial clean will not include.
Should I pay for a trial clean?
Yes. The candidate is working, and in most places that time has to be paid. Paying also brings you more serious candidates. Check the wage rules where you hire.
How many questions should a cleaning business interview include?
Ten to fifteen scenario questions fit in about 30 minutes. Leave a few minutes for the candidate's questions about the schedule, pay and the homes.
What makes a cleaner likely to stay?
Nobody can predict that from an interview. What helps: telling the candidate the real day before the offer, a team lead who trains them in the first weeks, and a schedule that matches what you promised. See our guide to hiring a house cleaner for the first 90 days, and the residential cleaning seat list for the other seats on a cleaning team.
First Move Assessment measures the first instincts behind these questions before you hire (it does not measure cleaning skill, so keep the trial clean): get the three sample reports.