Hiring managers who use structured interviews are more confident in their candidate selection, with good reason! Structured interviews result in a more accurate appraisal of each candidate and therefore a more informed hiring decision.
Providing all interviewers with a structured interview format increases confidence and results in accurate candidate appraisals. interviewIA allows interviewers to keep eye contact with candidates during the discussion while simultaneously allowing them to keep track of the candidate’s great responses and provide a great candidate experience.
Lack of confidence may stem from an interviewer’s inexperience or a competitive hiring environment. Either way, hiring is hard.
Making the wrong choice is expensive and time consuming. The wrong hire may leave the position in weeks or months, thereby incurring the expenses of hiring again. Or worse, you may hire someone who becomes a detriment to the team, disrupting the team dynamics that worked before the new hire arrived.
Selecting the right candidate hinges on being able to quickly identify the candidate qualities that are relevant to the job. Uncovering the right information is difficult to do in an interview. It’s easy for the interviewer to get distracted by the conversation and fail to gather the information that they need to make an accurate appraisal. Even experienced hiring managers can fail to obtain the right information about a candidate.
By structuring your interviews, you ensure that you evaluate the qualities critical to making the right fit between the candidate and the job. You can also be sure to fit in all the right questions in the limited time available. And you can be sure that when you hear the right answers to your questions, you’ll recognize them.
Compared to an informal interview, a structured behavioral interview has the following benefits:
- Interviewers feel more confident in their decisions.
- Appraisals of candidates are more accurate.
Be careful! Sharing candidate information with interviewers ahead of the interview lowers the accuracy of the assessment.
How do you begin to build a more structured interview process? Find out in our 4 Steps to Achieve a More Structured Interview article.
