Effective Interviewing: Improving Hiring Decisions

One of the most pervasive methods deployed across all types of organizations for making hiring decisions is an ‘Interview’. While some organizations use it as one of the many ways to make accurate hiring decisions, many use it as the only way. According to British Psychological Society (BPS), the confidence level of a Structured & Trained interview is about 0.3, in other words, if the interviewer is trained in interviewing methodology & skills and uses a structured approach, the probability of predicting a candidate’s success at the job is 30%. Further more, the probability that one will make an accurate decision by using an unstructured approach with an untrained interviewer drops down to 10%. Hence, if an organization is to get the best returns from its recruitment efforts, selecting the right talent, it makes sense that it looks into making its interviewing process robust.

The starting point for improving efficacy of the interviewing process is to consider what the interviews must deliver. Through these interviews, as with other tools & techniques for assessment, and specifically about making a hiring decision, we are trying to answer the following question: “Should we hire this person?” This question can be broken down into further sub-questions such as: ‘Is he the right fit?’ ‘Does he demonstrate the right competencies required for this particular role?’ ‘Does he show potential for future growth within our company?’ and so forth. By the end of the interview, the interviewer must be able to give accurate observations forming the basis of his/her recommendations. These recommendations, in essence, are predictions about the candidate's potential success with the company.

It is safe to assume that most job seekers will tend to exaggerate their achievements as they are looking to create the best impression to get the job. Which brings us to the question of how interviewers can predict whether this particular candidate is the right candidate for the job, amongst all the others. Evidence suggests that patterns in behavior tend to repeat themselves overtime. For instance, if previously under a stressful and high-pressure situation a candidate has shown persistence, steadfastness and delivered results, chances are that in future, under similar situations, he will be able to be persistent and deliver results. An interviewer might ask questions that explore this particular competency and probe into the details. So, the interviewer may start by asking an open-ended question such as, ‘Tell me about a time in your past career or job when you had to deliver something under very strict deadlines and how were you able to do it?’ As the interviewee explains the situation, the task he had to perform, his actions and the final results he was able to achieve, the interviewer will have many opportunities to delve deeper into the details by asking probing questions. The idea is to unearth as much detail as the time allows which provides the interviewer with evidence that this candidate does have the ability to manage himself under pressure, stick to the targets, and give that extra push to get the results.

Assessing competencies, which are behavioral patterns based on knowledge, skills & attitudes, has established itself as an effective way to determine a candidate’s potential as well as identify performance gaps. Competency Based Interview is a behavioral and/or potential assessment method adapted for interviewing. Assuming that the total allocated time for an interview is 1 hour and if the interviewer spends first 5 minutes in introducing the candidate to the process and keeps last 5 minutes for any questions the candidate may have, he will effectively have 50 minutes to assesses the candidate’s abilities and fit for the job. Up to five competency areas can be explored in 10-minute intervals, which are deemed important and critical to an organization and/or the job in question. An interviewer can then ask a standard set of questions regarding each competency area, listen, take notes, probe, and try to generate proof of candidate’s eligibility for the applied position.

As an example, let’s say as an interviewer you are assessing if the person is result oriented. You would be looking for behaviors which the candidate may have shown in the past such as developing challenging but achievable goals, maintaining commitment to goals, finding ways to measure performance against goals, and setting and maintaining high performance standards for self in the process. So, you may start with the question, ‘Tell me about the last time that you undertook a project that demanded a lot of initiative.’ The candidate may start describing such a project and as you take notes and listen, you can follow up with questions such as, ‘What did you specifically do in the project?’ ‘What were the challenges you faced?’ ‘How did you overcome the challenge?’ ‘What was your personal contribution?’ ‘What was the outcome?’ ‘How did your efforts contribute to the outcome?' As the answers come, you rate/mark the presence of required behaviors where candidate’s examples have confirmed them. With this approach it’s difficult for candidates to lie their way through with ambiguous, made-up answers as the interviewer presses for specifics. The inability to generate any details, and lack of first-person speech (use of ‘we’, ‘they’, ‘them’ instead of ‘I’) will automatically signal the ineligibility of the candidate.

Companies will most likely have a team of recruiters who conduct interviews of applicants for various advertised roles. To ensure consistency and accuracy of interview results and recommendations, organizations need to provide a structure that all interviewers can be trained in, a standard interviewing method. The well known ‘S.T.A.R’ (S: situation; T: task; A: action; R: result) methodology can be utilized. Trained in this approach, all interviewers will (for any given unique role) start with a scripted welcome, explore same competencies, ask standardized questions, generate notes (behavioral evidence), and probe to go deeper (for confirmation of their observations) allowing them to give consistently accurate recommendations. This ensures interview reliability, and this practice does not limit itself to HR only. Line managers will benefit from it just as much if not more. The challenge with line managers is their focus on the functional aspects of a job, limiting them to asking/exploring a candidate’s technical expertise. While absolutely essential, it is only a part of assessment leading to a hiring decision, especially for management roles.

A group of technical recruiters trained in this methodology in the IT sector reported the following changes in the way they conducted interviews. They reported becoming more objective (gathering proof of performance) rather than relying on their ‘gutfeel’ as this approach allowed them to stay focused on exploring behaviors in addition to the functional skills. They also reported an improved ability to go into and absorb details and take meticulous notes so as to make an informed decision. Improving their ability to pick the ‘right’ candidates.

In my experience, many interviewers start with the question, “Tell me about yourself.” To me, this signals that the interviewer has not prepared for the interview and is buying time to quickly look at the applicant’s CV, so that he can ask other questions, and generally, questions such as these are a waste of time. Instead, the interviewer, having spent time going through the applicant’s profile, achievements, and experiences, and having a good understanding of the Job Description/Profile in the Pre-Interview preparation phase, needs to be ready to make the best use of limited interviewing time. He needs to introduce himself, make the candidate comfortable, welcome & orient her to what will happen in the interview, ask for any clarifying questions the candidate may have and then jump into the defined interviewing structure.

Improving and sustaining interviewing effectiveness can be seen as a three-step process: Preparing for the interview, Conducting the interview, and Recommendations. All of these steps are equally important for ensuring interviewing accuracy, and consistency in following this process will improve the validity of results. During the preparation phase the interviewer can identify areas in the candidate’s CV which he would like to explore during the interview, through the standard questions, which have a bearing on the given role. In formulating recommendations, post interview, the interviewer can summarize what he has observed, gather substantiating evidence, and either endorse or reject application based on whether the interviewee has met the hiring criteria (as spelled out in the JD) or not.

Interviewers’ training in understanding the importance of and proficiency in following process and interviewing structure or method cannot be over emphasized. They need to be trained to analyze a JD and understand key behavioral and functional requirements for success. They need to have a clear understanding of the ‘Cultural’ aspects of their organization, in terms of what is valued and appreciated in an employee. I’ve known cases where the person was a great ‘Job-Fit’ but culturally a misfit. The end result was that he left the organization in under 6 months.

Interviewers need to follow the method and they need to be trained to suspend ‘judgment’ while going through the interview. Many a times experienced interviewers start getting an indication that this candidate is not the one and the tendency may be to close the interview mid-way through. It is recommended to go through the interview and give ample opportunity to the applicant to demonstrate the required competencies. It may be stressful for the applicant as she may desperately need this job and despite being competent, may fumble around, not finding her bearings. The interviewer may rephrase his questions as well as check his tone for being too aggressive or overbearing, and/or offer the interviewee a break to regain composure.

If an organization is to rely on job interviews for making hiring decisions, it needs to ensure that their approach is reliable and valid. There are three components that help in embedding interviewing effectiveness. First, define a process for the interviews, second, define an interviewing methodology, and lastly, train all interviewers in this process and methodology. S.T.A.R interviewing methodology offers a proven way to assess job and culture fit as required by the competencies and values of the recruiting organization. The recruiting manager or head can play a Quality Assurance role in overseeing and ensuring adherence to the process and method. When a standardized process and methodology is used across the board, results’ quality (the right person on the right job) would be ensured.