Imagine the following scenario – you have been interviewing candidates for a vacancy in your team:

• Candidate A was very chatty from the beginning – you realised that you share the same commute and got on very well. During their interview, Candidate A answered your questions well and naturally provided the level of detail that you needed. You rarely needed to ask any follow-up questions. There were some gaps in their experience, but the questions they could answer were comprehensive.
• Candidate B seemed quite reserved and barely spoke on the way to the interview room. During the interview, you asked your standard questions but didn’t get very much back. They spoke generally about their experience but gave less evidence of their personal contributions. You got through your questions quickly and the interview ended early.

Who are you favouring? On the surface, Candidate A seems the more promising candidate. They were easy to speak to, their answers needed minimal clarification and they generally made your role as interviewer easier. You asked the questions and they gave you what you needed. You collected much less evidence from Person B.

Was Candidate A the better candidate? Or did Candidate B have plenty of relevant experience that we failed to uncover through our questioning?

This is a common scenario. In our experience of observing many interviews, we find that the skills of the interviewer can have a large bearing on how effective, fair and predictive an interview is.

A candidate may have the necessary capability but may not share this with the interviewer due to the questions that were asked, or assumptions made.

In the scenario above, Candidate B may have been the more qualified candidate. But they may have experienced fewer interviews and were unsure of the format. Candidate A appeared more polished and spoke more freely but may have more experience of interviews.

What we need to avoid is a situation where a candidate is more qualified for a role, with more relevant experience, but we miss this because we fail to uncover it through our questioning.

Why interview candidates?

Let’s start with why we are interviewing candidates. We have been using interviews in recruitment for a long time and there is a reason for this. Over 100 years of research suggest that a well-designed structured interview can be best single predictor of future job performance(1).

It also has a good reaction from candidates, who often expect to be interviewed and to have the opportunity to share their experience in a conversation(2).

However, interviews are time intensive for both interviewers and the candidate. And the interview process (and its effectiveness) can vary massively between organisations and hiring managers.

Whilst a well-designed structured interview (with consistent criteria, questioning, note taking and scoring) is the best predictor of performance, an unstructured interview is one of the worst. It all comes down to the level of structure, the relevance of the criteria and the skill of the interviewer.

Below we cover some of the essentials for interviewers and what you can do if you are looking to improve the impact of your interview process.

The role of the interviewer

A common misconception among interviewers is the belief that we should be assessing the candidate during the interview. In reality, focus should be on collecting relevant information – asking relevant questions and ensuring that candidates have had the opportunity to share their relevant evidence.

Part of this involves effective note taking – making sure that we capture and record evidence in an objective way. What we do with this evidence happens after the interview has ended. As with our example above, we want to avoid a situation where a candidate had the relevant evidence – we just failed to uncover it during the interview.

Do you put candidates at ease?

Our initial interactions with a candidate can shape the version of them that we see, and subsequently how they share information with us. Whilst many interviewers recognise the importance of building rapport before launching into questions, candidates’ level of comfort can be influenced by their interactions before the interview – for example, how much they have in common with the interviewer. As much as possible we need to create a consistent experience for all candidates.

How to structure your interviews

A lot of anxiety for candidates can come from what to expect in an interview. Some candidates may have experience of structured interviews.

For others, it may be many years since they have been interviewed. For early career candidates, this may be the first time they have been interviewed. Try to level the playing field by providing consistent instructions for candidates so that they know what to expect and can prepare effectively.

This will help to reduce the advantage given to candidates who may have contacts or family members who can advise them on what to expect, versus candidates who may be the first person to experience an assessment process such as this.

Much of the structure in a structured interview comes from a clear process for collecting relevant evidence. The funnel technique or STAR (situation, task, action, result) is one approach to follow as an interviewer.

Start by prompting the candidate to share a relevant situation they have encountered in relation to your competency, and prompt them to discuss the task they were working on, the actions they personally took and the result.

Clarifying and exploring answers

As interviewers we are actively gathering evidence. A common misconception is that a structured interview equates to a passive ‘reading of the questions’.

Less skilled interviewers will ask the question and record whatever the candidate initially shares with minimal exploration. We are not trying to catch candidates out. We are looking to uncover any relevant evidence that the candidate has and this takes some work.

Some candidates may be well versed in interviewing and automatically share the right level of detail, but in many cases we need to delve deeper into an answer – to clarify what they are saying and to avoid assumptions being made about their experience.

Many interviewers remain at a surface level when interviewing and never drill down to uncover the rich behavioural evidence underneath. This can lead to assumptions made – particularly if we think a candidate is really promising (“I know what they meant to say”) or poor (“they had nothing relevant to add”).

It takes practice to develop these skills, but these skills can be developed quickly when interviewers are clear on what they need to do, and have the opportunity to practice questioning in a safe training environment where they can receive feedback.

How can we improve our interview process?

Before looking at interview technique, it is important to have the fundamentals in place.

• Relevant criteria – check that the criteria you are interviewing against remains relevant to the roles you are hiring for. Are your competencies more than five years old? They may need a refresh.
• Standardised interview process – ensure that the interview process (instructions, communication, timings, guidance, scoring, decision making) has all been defined; essentially capturing the process that you would like your hiring managers to each follow. We can help you with this if this is something you are working on.

Once you have these in place, we can focus on ensuring that hiring managers all have the skills to follow the process consistently. We want to avoid a situation where Interviewer A and B would interview and score a candidate differently. This is where skills training is important:

• Inclusive Interview Skills training – where interviewers can practice using your interview materials and process, and receive feedback on their approach. Our training covers the best practice principles of interviewing and the key skills we outline above – effective questioning and evidence gathering.

How do we know that our interviews are objective?

There are several things you can look at:

• Observation – we conduct live bias reviews where we observe interviews and identify where the approach can be enhanced, including the management of bias in the process.
• Review outcomes – by monitoring the outcomes of your interview process, you can identify any adverse impact (where some groups of candidates are more successful than others) and take steps to improve this. We can advise you on this.

Recruitment is a big investment for any organisation. The results can vary significantly, but by following the steps above, you can have a significant impact on how recruitment is perceived and on the diversity and quality of your future hires.

Inclusive Interview Training for Hiring Managers

If you need support ensuring that your hiring managers are effectively trained to be more inclusive, learn more about our Inclusive Interviewer Skills training or contact us via info@pearnkandola.com

References

1 – Hausknecht, J., Day, D., & Th omas, S. (2004). Applicant  reactions to selection procedures: An updated model and  meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 57, 639–683.

Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2021). Revisiting Meta-Analytic Estimates of Validity in Personnel Selection: Addressing Systematic Overcorrection for Restriction of Range. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040–2068. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000994

2 – Schmitt, Neal. The Oxford Handbook of Personnel Assessment and Selection (Oxford Library of Psychology) (p. 347). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.