Interviewing Candidates Effectively

A good interview should help you establish whether a jobseeker has the experience, skills and approach needed for the role. It should also give every jobseeker a fair and consistent opportunity to demonstrate what they can offer.

Interviews are most useful when they are structured rather than treated as informal conversations. A clear process, consistent questions and objective assessment can improve the quality of hiring decisions without making the process unnecessarily complicated.

Prepare Before the Interview

Review the jobseeker's CV and application before the interview and identify what you still need to establish.

Be clear about the key requirements of the role and prepare a small set of core questions that you can ask every jobseeker. You can then use follow-up questions to explore individual experience where relevant.

Useful question types include:

• Experience-based: What relevant experience does the jobseeker have?
  
• Behavioural: How have they handled situations they have actually encountered?
  
• Situational: How would they approach a realistic situation relevant to the role?
  
• Technical: Do they have the technical or professional knowledge required?
  

Recruiter's Tip: Before interviewing, consider what a strong answer would demonstrate for each important question. This gives you something concrete to assess rather than relying only on your overall impression.

Structure the Interview

A simple structure keeps the interview focused:

1. Introduce yourself and explain the interview format.
   
2. Ask questions about experience and relevant skills.
   
3. Explore specific examples from the jobseeker's background.
   
4. Allow time for the jobseeker to ask questions.
   
5. Explain the next steps and expected timeframe.
   

Briefly explaining the format at the beginning can also help put the jobseeker at ease and encourage more considered answers.

Keep an eye on time so that an engaging discussion about one topic does not prevent you from covering other important areas.

Ask Questions that Produce Useful Evidence

Avoid relying heavily on questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no", such as: "Are you good at working under pressure?"

Instead, ask for a specific example: "Tell me about a time you had to work under significant pressure. What was the situation, what did you do and what was the outcome?"

Questions about actual experience generally give you more useful information than asking how someone thinks they would behave.

Follow-up questions are equally important. If an answer is vague, ask what the jobseeker personally did, what challenges they faced and what the result was.

Keep the Assessment Fair

Interviewers can form impressions quickly and those impressions can influence how later answers are interpreted. Common examples include:

• First impression bias: Giving too much weight to an early impression.
  
• Similarity bias: Favouring someone because they share your background, interests or communication style.
  
• Halo effect: Allowing one positive quality, such as confidence, to influence unrelated areas of assessment.
  
• Recency bias: Giving too much weight to the most recent interview.
  

A consistent set of questions and simple written assessment criteria can help reduce these effects.

Common Mistake: Making a decision in the first few minutes and then spending the rest of the interview looking for information that confirms it. Keep testing your initial impression throughout the interview.

Assessing Jobseekers Fairly After the Interview

Record your assessment soon after the interview, while the discussion is still fresh.

Focus on the requirements of the role rather than an overall feeling about the person. A simple assessment against areas such as relevant experience, technical skills, communication and role-specific requirements can be enough.

Where several people are involved in the hiring decision, it is useful for each interviewer to record their initial assessment before discussing the candidate as a group. This helps prevent one person's opinion from dominating the discussion.

Remember that interview performance is only one part of the picture. Consider it alongside the jobseeker's experience, qualifications, skills and other relevant information.

Giving Jobseekers a Professional Experience

The interview process reflects on your organisation, whether or not the jobseeker is ultimately hired.

Where practical:

• Confirm the interview details clearly.
  
• Start and finish reasonably close to the agreed time.
  
• Explain what the next stage involves.
  
• Give realistic expectations about when the jobseeker can expect to hear from you.
  
• Communicate the outcome within a reasonable timeframe.
  

A respectful and well-organised process helps create a positive impression of your organisation and supports a stronger recruitment experience for everyone involved.

Keep It Simple

You do not need a complicated interview system. For most roles, a clear structure, a consistent set of relevant questions and an assessment based on the actual requirements of the job will provide a solid foundation for better hiring decisions.