Hiring managers often ask questions during a job interview to gauge how you handle challenging circumstances. Adriane Schwager takes a direct approach to this — she likes to ask applicants if they've ever experienced burnout before.

"I actually want to see that someone has burned out," Schwager tells CNBC Make It. "Some people will take it as a negative, [but] I actually want to see that they've done that."

Schwager is the CEO and co-founder of GrowthAssistant, a hiring platform, and has interviewed thousands of candidates during her 20 years in the recruiting space.

By asking this question, Schwager says she wants to see that candidates are self-aware of how they recognize that they're burned out, communicate their needs to their manager, and address the feeling.

"In a fast-paced startup environment, burnout is kind of inevitable," she says. "If I'm hiring someone who's talented, they're going to work very hard. I really have to figure out if they know how to manage that themselves."

For example, she might hear from a candidate, "Yeah, I burned out one time, and I learned that every quarter, I need two days off with no phone, no internet, totally offline," she says. "They recognized it, they learned from it, and they've applied those changes to their to experiences."

Schwager will often change up the wording of her question in case the candidate's definition of burnout is different from her own. She might ask: "Tell me about a time where you lost motivation?"

"Sometimes people aren't even aware of their own burnout," she says. "One of the valuable things to come out of this question is to see who is self-aware."

If someone hasn't burned out before, she'll ask about the time they pushed themselves the hardest at work. "At that point, I'm trying to understand if they have the horsepower and drive to do this job well," she says.

Schwager says understanding someone's burnout history can help her be a better boss.

For example, Schwager recently noticed one of her reports was working long hours. So she checked in and asked: "Is that burnout for you, or passion? How will I know when passion turns to getting into the burnout zone?"

"As her manager, I want to be able to look out for her in that way: Hey, I'm noticing this pattern. You told me this was your pattern when you're approaching burnout. Is there something we should talk about here? Do you need help prioritizing?"

Ultimately, she says, "I want to know how I can support them."

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