Structured interviewing is an objective process that helps to reduce bias both in the interview room and when evaluating candidates’ answers afterward. A structured interview typically includes questions directly related to the role and a standardized scoring system.
Implementing a structured interview process can effectively hire top talent and reduce lousy hiring decisions. Follow these tips to get started:
Develop a Job Description
Before conducting interviews, you must clearly understand what you want in a candidate. This includes hard skills like software or language proficiency and soft skills like attention to detail and communication.
This information can then be used to develop a structured interview. This type of interview is based on predetermined questions and scoring systems correlated to the job competencies identified in the job analysis.
Structured interviews are also better for predicting job performance than unstructured ones and are more legally defensible. They are also faster than traditional interviews.
Create a Job Description Rubric
Create a list of hard and soft skills crucial to the role. Discuss these categories with department heads and employees who already fill the role to ensure you have a complete list of skills for screening candidates.
Create an evaluation rubric once you have a list of skills to interview for. This will allow interviewers to use consistent questions and evaluate each candidate on the same criteria.
When developing a comprehensive job description rubric, a structured interview process is essential to ensure a systematic and fair evaluation of candidates based on predetermined criteria, contributing to an effective and unbiased hiring procedure.
This will eliminate the influence of biases like first impressions and recency, allowing you to hire better. It also makes hiring decisions data-driven, improving the candidate pool’s overall quality.
Create a Job Description Checklist
A clear job description is an essential part of the hiring process. It provides candidates with information about the role, responsibilities, company culture, and growth opportunities.
The first step in creating a job description is identifying the skills, competencies, and traits critical for success in the role. This will help you develop interview questions that accurately reflect the job requirements and ensure that you evaluate all candidates equally.
Once you have identified the critical competencies, use them to create interview questions that evaluate candidate responses using a standardized rating system. This will prevent unconscious bias in the evaluation of interviewees.
Conduct a Job Description Interview
Using structured interview questions during hiring allows you to assess candidates based on standardized criteria. This eliminates confirmation bias and enables you to make more data-driven hiring decisions.
When interviewing a candidate, focus on the specific skills and requirements in the job description. For example, if the job description lists leadership skills as a requirement, ask candidates about their experience leading teams.
In addition, make sure to provide a positive interview experience. This can include offering water, encouraging two-way conversation, and demonstrating professionalism throughout the interview.
Conduct a Job Description Assessment
Conducting a structured interview is one of the best ways to assess candidates for a role. It helps reduce bias in candidate assessments by allowing interviewers to ask predetermined questions correlated to critical job competencies derived from a job analysis. This allows for consistency and objectivity in interview evaluations and enables hiring managers to make more accurate assessment decisions.
Structured interviews can also help prevent affinity bias when interviewers prefer similar candidates. By using standardized interview questions and taking standardized notes, structured interviews can help minimize this bias.
Conduct a Job Description Interview Follow-Up
Conducting a follow-up interview can be a great way to get to know the hiring manager and establish a professional relationship. The goal should be to ensure the candidate is still interested in the role and that their skills dovetail with the department or company goals.
Employers must use a structured interview to choose the best candidate for each job. By using standardized questions and an evaluation system, recruiters can eliminate personal bias during the interview process. They can also make more objective decisions by focusing on the quality of candidates’ responses.
Conduct a Job Description Assessment Follow-Up
Structured interviews provide the opportunity to examine candidates based on a job analysis, removing personal preferences and biases. This helps mitigate recruitment biases and enables a legal defense for your hiring practices in case of an employment discrimination lawsuit.
You can objectively assess candidates using structured interview questions and a consistent rating system to find the best fit for your organization. This also demonstrates that you value fairness in the workplace and are committed to providing a positive candidate experience.
A positive interview experience can help your company stand out and boost its brand reputation. This includes ensuring that every candidate feels comfortable and heard throughout the process.
