Short version: A janitor / cleaner interview is short (usually 20–35 minutes) and covers four things a facilities manager cares about: reliability (attendance, weekend and holiday coverage), safety and chemistry (OSHA HazCom, SDS, dilution ratios, PPE), route and pace (square footage cleaned per shift, restrooms per hour, floor-machine time), and interpersonal composure (working around tenants, handling a complaint, working alone at night). Answer every question with a specific building, a specific number, and a specific SOP if there was one. Below are 25+ questions grouped by round with the rubric graders use and a sample answer for each.
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What the interview looks like
Most commercial cleaning interviews are a single 20-to-35-minute conversation with an account manager, a facilities supervisor, or a lead janitor. Larger operations — ABM, ServiceMaster, ISS, C&W Services, hospital EVS departments — sometimes add a second round with an HR generalist for I-9 and background-check paperwork, plus a building walk-through with the building supervisor. In every case, the interviewer is looking for three things at once: (1) can this person show up on time, every shift, weekends and holidays included; (2) will this person do the job safely without dumping a chemical without gloves or without a wet-floor sign; and (3) can this person handle a tenant walking through the lobby during a floor extraction without an incident. Give them each signal with a specific example, and the offer usually comes within 24 hours.
Basic screening & reliability
1. Tell me about yourself.
Sample answer. "I've been in commercial cleaning for six years — two years on the second-shift crew at a 480,000-square-foot class-A office building in downtown Atlanta with ABM, and four years running a two-person crew as lead janitor at a mid-size hospital with 220 patient rooms. I hold OSHA HazCom, bloodborne-pathogen training current through October 2027, and my ISSA CIMS certificate. I'm looking to move because the hospital contract is being rebid and I'd rather join a strong crew now than wait to find out where the contract lands."
Rubric: buildings named, certifications current, reason for the move is specific and not personal.
2. Why are you leaving your current job?
Sample answer. "The building sold, and the new owner brought in a different cleaning vendor. The whole crew was told our last day. I want to land somewhere stable, and this building has a reputation for keeping crews long."
Rubric: no blaming; specific and verifiable; expresses interest in stability, which matters here.
3. What shift are you available for? Weekends and holidays?
Sample answer. Answer clearly and specifically. "I'm available second shift, 3 PM to 11 PM, Monday through Friday, plus one weekend day. I can cover holidays with two weeks' notice — I've worked the last three Christmas Eves at the hospital. My hard 'no' is only my daughter's birthday in April, which I flag in advance."
Rubric: specific hours, weekend willingness, holiday willingness, one honest carve-out is fine and reassuring.
4. How's your attendance history?
Sample answer. "Two call-outs in the last twelve months — one flu, one for my mother's hospital admission. I called my supervisor 90 minutes before shift both times and arranged coverage. The rest of the year I was on time within a five-minute window. My supervisor at ABM will confirm."
Rubric: honest number, specific reason, communication protocol named, reference offered.
5. Do you have reliable transportation?
Sample answer. "Yes — I have a car, and the building is a 25-minute drive from my house. For the winter I keep a backup on the MARTA line in case the car doesn't start. I've never missed a shift for transportation."
Rubric: primary + backup; specific commute time; concrete track record.
Safety, chemistry & PPE
6. Walk me through what you'd do before using a new chemical.
Sample answer. "Pull the Safety Data Sheet from the SDS binder or the app. Check the hazard section for the PPE required — gloves, eye protection, respirator, apron — and put those on. Confirm the dilution ratio on the label; most commercial concentrates are 1-to-32 or 1-to-64 for daily use, but the label is the authority. Never mix a chemical with anything except water and never mix two chemicals unless the label explicitly directs it. Post the SDS location before the shift starts."
Rubric: SDS first; PPE per hazard section; dilution per label; no ad-hoc mixing; SDS accessibility.
7. What is OSHA HazCom and when did you last take it?
Sample answer. "OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard — 29 CFR 1910.1200 — requires employers to inform employees about the chemicals in the workplace: labels, safety data sheets, and training. I took HazCom for the first time in 2020 and my last refresher was in March of this year. Some employers require an annual refresher; OSHA itself only requires it on hire and when a new hazard is introduced, but I take annual because it's easy to lose the edge."
Rubric: regulation cited by name; understands labels/SDS/training triad; annual habit implicit.
8. What PPE do you use every shift?
Sample answer. "Nitrile gloves for chemical work — I keep two boxes on the cart. Safety glasses when I'm mixing or using anything that can splash. Slip-resistant boots always. Cut-resistant gloves for trash and restroom trap-clean. For a hospital shift, an ASTM-rated fluid-resistant gown and an N95 for isolation rooms, plus eye protection. I check my glove size at the start of shift so I have a snug fit; a loose glove is worse than none."
Rubric: PPE named per task; fit awareness; hospital variant is different from office.
9. What is a bloodborne pathogen exposure and what do you do?
Sample answer. "Blood, other potentially infectious material, or a needle-stick contact with a mucous membrane or a break in skin. Immediate response: for a needle stick or open wound, wash for 15 minutes with soap and water; for a splash to the eye, flush at the eyewash for 15 minutes. Report to the supervisor and the facility's employee health within one hour so the source-patient testing and post-exposure prophylaxis window is open. Fill out the exposure log. This is not a shift you finish and report tomorrow."
Rubric: definition correct; immediate action correct; reporting SLA (1 hour) named; follows facility SOP.
10. What is the wet-floor sign protocol?
Sample answer. "Sign before the mop, not after. Any time water or a chemical hits the floor in a tenant-accessible area, the sign goes up at both approaches and stays up until the floor is bone dry. For a large area, cones every 15 feet along the perimeter. I take a photo before I leave the area to document the sign placement in case someone slips — that photo covers me and the building both."
Rubric: sign before mop; both approaches; documentation habit.
Route, pace & equipment
11. Walk me through your route on a typical shift.
Sample answer. "At the last building — 320,000 square feet — my shift ran 4 to midnight. First hour: pick up trash and recycling on all five floors, high-touch disinfection of elevator buttons and lobby door handles. Hours two through four: restrooms — 8 sets, roughly 25 minutes per set, disinfect all touch points, refill dispensers, mop, sign, log. Hours five through six: floor care — auto-scrubber on the lobby and main corridors, spot-mop breakroom. Hour seven: kitchens and breakrooms, dish machine, disinfect counters. Hour eight: cart reset, chemical inventory, close-out log, secure the building."
Rubric: specific times, specific volumes, includes touch-point protocol, ends with an SOP-based close.
12. How much square footage can you cover in an 8-hour shift?
Sample answer. "Depends on the mix. For general commercial-office work with a light restroom load, 25,000 to 35,000 square feet is normal. For heavy-restroom work like a hospital or a public building, closer to 15,000 to 22,000 because the restrooms are the bottleneck. I can name the number for the specific building once I've walked it."
Rubric: range with context; understands the restroom bottleneck; offers to calibrate on a walk.
13. Which floor machines have you operated?
Sample answer. "Walk-behind auto scrubbers — Tennant T300, Advance SC450. Ride-on scrubbers — Tennant T7 at the last building. Burnishers — Advance UB-40 for propane, several corded models for evening use. Extractors — Rug Doctor commercial, Karcher Puzzi. I hold the Tennant operator card from 2023. I don't have direct experience on a rider sweeper; I've watched it run but not operated it myself."
Rubric: names models; operator card; honest on what they haven't run.
14. Have you stripped and waxed a floor?
Sample answer. "Yes — a 12,000-square-foot lobby at the office building, twice a year. Sequence: dust-mop, block the area, apply stripper 1-to-8, agitate with a black pad on a low-speed machine, wet-vac, neutralize with clean water, allow to dry completely, then apply four coats of finish with 20 minutes between coats. Burnish 24 hours later. It's a two-person, ten-hour job at that footage."
Rubric: sequence correct; dilution named; drying and cure time acknowledged.
15. How do you approach a restroom you've never cleaned?
Sample answer. "First visit is diagnostic. Sign the door 'temporarily out of service.' Walk it: how many stalls, how many urinals, how many sinks and dispensers, what the flooring is, whether the grout is intact, where the fixtures leak. Then top-down cleaning: dispensers, mirrors, partitions, fixtures, floor last. I log the initial state — chipped porcelain, broken dispenser latch, grout condition — so anything found later isn't blamed on me. Twenty-five minutes for a normal 5-stall/3-urinal set once I know the room."
Rubric: diagnostic first; top-down order; documentation habit; realistic time.
Tenant & interpersonal
16. How do you handle a difficult tenant or building complaint?
Sample answer. "Acknowledge the tenant directly and calmly — apologize for the inconvenience even if the complaint isn't accurate. Log it in the building's tenant-request system per the SOP. Escalate to my supervisor or the account manager within the time the SOP requires — usually 30 minutes for a tenant-side complaint. Continue the shift; a tenant complaint doesn't stop the route for the other 40 floors. Follow up the next day to confirm the issue was closed on the tenant's side."
Rubric: acknowledge → log → escalate → continue; specific SLA; follow-up loop closed.
17. What would you do if you found a wallet in a conference room?
Sample answer. "Don't touch the contents. Bag it, tag it with time, floor, and room, and hand it to security or the account manager immediately with a written note. If neither is on site, log the find in the shift book with the same detail and take a photo before I lock it in the janitor closet. It goes to lost-and-found the same night, not the next day."
Rubric: chain-of-custody instinct; documentation; same-shift handoff.
18. What if a tenant asks you to do something outside your route — say, mop up a spill on a floor you weren't scheduled to clean?
Sample answer. "Yes — safety takes priority. Sign the area, take care of the immediate hazard, then continue the route. Log the extra time in the shift book so the supervisor sees it. If it starts being a recurring ask, I flag it to the supervisor to coordinate with the account — a recurring off-route ask is a scope conversation, not a shift-level one."
Rubric: safety-first response; documented; recurring pattern → scope conversation, not silent absorption.
19. Tell me about a time you noticed a safety hazard.
Sample answer. "Second shift, third-floor breakroom — I found a coffee maker with a scorched cord under the counter still plugged in. I unplugged it, tagged it 'do not use,' logged the finding, and emailed the tenant's office manager with a photo. The tenant replaced the machine the next morning. If I hadn't caught it, it was going to start a fire — the insulation was already brittle."
Rubric: specific example; correct immediate action; documentation and communication both.
20. Are you comfortable working alone at night?
Sample answer. "Yes — I've done nights in an office tower and in a hospital. I follow the building's lone-worker protocol: sign in and out with security, keep the two-way radio on, and check in at the agreed intervals. I don't prop doors, I don't let strangers in the service corridor, and I know where the panic buttons are."
Rubric: lone-worker protocol named; security awareness; specific building examples.
Hospital EVS-specific questions
21. What is a terminal clean?
Sample answer. "A full room turnover after a patient discharge — every horizontal and vertical touch surface disinfected with the facility's approved agent (typically a quaternary or a peracetic-acid product) at the labeled contact time. Bed rails, IV pole, over-bed table, phone, call light, chair arms, door handles, light switches, restroom fixtures. Change privacy curtains if the SOP requires. Floor last. Time the contact — walking away too early is the most common failure. Sign the room per the SOP as ready for the next patient."
Rubric: named touch points; contact time discipline; SOP-driven.
22. How do you clean a room in isolation for C. diff?
Sample answer. "C. diff requires a sporicidal — a bleach solution or a peracetic-acid product, not a general quaternary. Full contact PPE: gown, gloves, mask, eye protection per the facility. Wet contact time on all surfaces per label. Disposable equipment where possible. Don't re-enter the room mid-clean. Doff PPE outside the room in the correct order and wash hands with soap and water — alcohol-based hand sanitizer doesn't kill C. diff spores. Log the terminal per the SOP."
Rubric: sporicidal (not quat); PPE order; soap-and-water (not sanitizer); documentation.
23. Walk me through your BBP training.
Sample answer. "Annual training, last refresh March 2026. Modules covered: exposure control plan, universal precautions, PPE, safe handling of sharps, response to a needle-stick or splash, hepatitis B vaccine offer, and post-exposure follow-up. I've had one workplace exposure — a splash to safety glasses, no eye contact — and followed the report chain within 20 minutes."
Rubric: current; module content specific; personal experience.
Questions you should ask them
- What are the crew size and the shift structure on this building?
- Who is my direct supervisor, and how often do we do a walk-through together?
- What SOPs are in place for the restroom checklist and floor-machine schedule?
- Is this building under a union CBA — 32BJ SEIU, SEIU-USWW, SEIU Local 1?
- What's the shift differential for second and third shift?
- What paid training is available — floor machines, ISSA CIMS, HAZWOPER?
- What's the promotion path — lead janitor, day porter foreman, supervisor?
- Who is the account manager on this account, and how long have they been on it?
Frequently asked questions
Four areas: reliability (attendance, on-time, weekend and holiday coverage), safety and chemistry (OSHA HazCom, SDS, PPE, dilution ratios), route and pace (square footage covered, restrooms per shift, floor-machine time), and interpersonal (tenants, complaints, working alone at night).
Some version of "How do you handle a difficult tenant or building complaint?" The strong answer: acknowledge, log per SOP, escalate to the supervisor in the specified time frame, and continue the shift.
Printed résumé, government ID, SSN card for onboarding, certifications page for OSHA HazCom, BBP, ISSA CIMS, or floor-machine training, and non-slip shoes in case the manager takes you on a building walk.
Answer with what you like about the trade — the visible result at end of shift, the independence of running a route, or the fact that you know what needs to be done without a supervisor over your shoulder.
Chemical safety and OSHA HazCom, PPE discipline, floor-machine operation, route planning and pace, BBP training if hospital or lab, ISSA CIMS or CMI certification, and bilingual coverage where it matters.
Three that repeat: tough shift alone, noticed a safety hazard, tenant complained about your work. All test whether you communicate with a supervisor and follow the SOP when the shift gets hard.
Refresh terminal-clean protocol, know BBP training expiration, name PPE for each isolation type, and prepare a specific example of following the OSHA HazCom sheet for a chemical you've used.
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