Interviewing Humans for Jobs

Job interviews help determine how well a candidate might fit a role. Learning about someone’s experience can illustrate how well they could perform in the future. Use this guide to help you make impartial and informed hiring decisions.

Set a baseline for hiring

It’s important to establish a baseline for what you expect from candidates. It’s better to compare candidates to a set of principles rather than to each other. Doing so will aid in removing bias from the decision-making process.

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” — David Ogilvy, CBE, Founder of Ogilvy & Mather

Example baseline:

• Is the candidate as comfortable leading the design process as those already on the team?
• Does the candidate have the potential to grow and develop over time?

Learn from the past

To predict how a candidate might perform in a future role, dig into their history. Part of your role as the interviewer is to help candidates tell their stories. Think of yourself as an investigative reporter. Ask the candidate for examples that show how well they meet your baseline. You should give the candidate a place to start and then guide them through the layers of their narrative. Each detail they give will shape your hiring decision with facts and data.

The S.T.A.R. Technique

The Situation-Task-Action-Result (S.T.A.R.) technique helps candidates navigate through their stories. You can use this method to uncover individual performance, skills, and outcomes.

Be sure to prepare early for an interview. Think about how you will consider the answers to your interview questions.

Avoid biases

It’s essential that we make hiring decisions based on a candidate’s qualifications. We should abstain from considering factors not related to the job. Sometimes, we can carry biases into a hiring decision. Some of them are easy to avoid while others may not be very obvious.

Informed bias

Often, signals from around us can influence our decisions. It’s important that we’re aware of these influences and try to minimize them when we can. For example, other interviewers might share feedback about candidates during the process. Debriefings after an interview are a great way to share feedback together. Emailing your feedback to a facilitator can also help avoid biasing other interviewers.

Unconscious bias

It’s difficult to be aware of biases that don’t have an obvious source. Sometimes, our brains will make leaps based on our experiences and assumptions. For example, familiar brand names or important job titles can affect your opinion of a candidate. These types of influences can feel concrete but might not always point to a good fit for the role you’re hiring for.

Gathering evidence with S.T.A.R.

Use the S.T.A.R. technique to aggregate facts and data related to the candidate’s experience. Evidence of success in the past makes a strong case for similar results in the future.

Your questions should prompt the candidate for specific examples. Use your baseline to evaluate the responses. Avoid using brain teasers or trick questions. They rarely uncover useful information and can erode the interview experience.

Example: Tell me about a time you worked on a project focused on usability…

Basing your assessment on the evidence will lead to a clear and substantiated hiring decision.

Offer a great interview experience

The interview experience can influence their perception of your company’s brand. The candidate’s impression is vital if you want them to accept a job offer. Keep in mind that the people you interview might also be your customers.

Customer first

Treat candidates like your customers; sometimes they might be. Be polite, be honest, and be positive. Often, you’ll get questions about what it’s like working at your company. Highlight the business at its best and point to opportunities the candidate might be able to address in their role. It’s good to be transparent and genuine when you answer. Avoid dead-end comments that may sound negative.

Set expectations

You can help candidates put their best foot forward by making sure they’re prepared for the interview. Make sure they get an email at least 48 hours before the interview day that answers:

• Who am I meeting with?
• What are we talking about?
• What should I wear?
• Should I bring anything?
• Where do I go?

At the start of the interview, introduce yourself and walk through the interview schedule. Offer the candidate details about the role, what skills are required, and what you’ll be talking about.

Example: “I’m Aaron. We’ll talk for the next 30 minutes, and then you’ll meet with Allison for lunch. You and I will talk about your experience as a [ job]. The role you applied for needs someone good at [things]. Is there anything you want to ask before we get started?”

Avoid *gotcha* questions

It might be tempting to test how clever someone is during an interview. Avoid this if you can. Remember, your job is to help the candidate tell their story so you can evaluate them at their best. Trick questions or ambiguous exercises erode trust and aren’t always reliable signals. For example: If you need to know how well a candidate can explain complex concepts or ideas, ask them to tell you about the last time they did so.

Asking a candidate to conjure a toddler-friendly explanation of recursive functions won’t tell you much about them. However, these type of tactics could make someone uncomfortable. Making the candidate anxious will make it more challenging to engage them for the rest of the interview.

Misc. notes

• If you’re taking notes on your computer, be sure to let the candidate know
• Have bottled water in the room for the candidate
• Silence your cell phone
• Be sure to spend more time listening than talking
• Schedule time for breaks
• Thank the candidate for their time

Make a decision

Arguably, the most critical part of the interview process is making a decision to hire or not. It’s essential that this decision is unbiased and is substantiated by the evidence you have.

Re-visit the baseline

Your baseline is the criteria that the candidate must meet to be considered for hire. The interview should have allowed you to collect enough evidence to make a case for hiring or rejecting the candidate. Remember, the only question you need to answer is, “Will the candidate perform well in this role?”. If your mind ventures off to think about anything unrelated to completing the job, re-focus on the baseline. The candidate’s personality, cultural differences, and appearance shouldn’t influence your decision.

Write down your feedback

Even if you have a strong opinion about the candidate, it’s a good idea to organize your thoughts in writing. Go back through their resume and your interview notes. Try to pull out evidence that supports your decision to hire or not. Sometimes, going back through the facts can change your mind. Writing feedback will help uncover patterns to evaluate against the baseline for hiring.

FAQs

1. Should I use a rubric or framework as a hiring baseline?
   You can use anything that provides context around what makes a good employee. I like to put criteria in question form because it’s easy to digest and help to avoid objectifying the candidate. It’s important to remember that a rubric is a tool for evaluating the interview, not the person. If the difference is foggy, avoid using a rubric.
2. Can whiteboard exercises be useful for evaluating how a candidate might perform?
   They can be. However, consistent past performance is the most reliable signal for future performance. If you’re interviewing someone for an entry-level position, these kind of exercises can supplement the candidate's work history in similar roles. Be mindful to keep the exercise authentic and as close to the real-world tasks as possible.
3. What should I do if the candidate reveals personal details about themselves?
   It’s extremely important that factors unrelated to the job qualifications are not considered. It’s equally important to make that clear to the candidate. Politely thank them for the information and tell them that it won’t influence the interview. Redirect the discussion back to your interview questions. Avoid topics like health, family, background, politics, religion, or anything not related to the role. You can be personable without getting personal.
4. Should I share my feedback with other interviewers?
   If there’s more than one interviewer for a candidate, all of the insights will influence the hiring decision. Spend time writing up your feedback and share it after all of the interviews are complete. Try to avoid “hallway feedback” because this could bias the next interviewer and you might not have a final opinion yet.
5. What can I do if I’m on the fence with a decision?
   If you’re still unsure if the candidate is qualified for the role or they’re falling short in some areas, look at their growth over time. If there’s a strong record of gaining new responsibility or achieving promotions, it’s likely that they’ll be able to adapt to the role and develop in areas they need to.

Have more questions? Post in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer or point you to some great folks that might be able to help.

Thanks for reading!

Note: All of these thoughts, views, and opinions are my own…until you tweet or share them.

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