Learning to love structured interviews
Hey everyone, quick logistical note before we get started.
When I started writing this post, I quickly realized that it was going to be a long one. So Iāve split it into three parts: Part 1 is all about the āWhy?ā and āWhat?ā of structured interviews, next week, in Part 2, Iāll break down the āHow?ā, and finally in Part 3 weāll talk about why thereās resistance to using structured interviews and what we can do about it.
The One Thing - Part 1
When someone asks me, āWhat is the one thing I can do to improve my hiring process?ā My answer is always, āStart doing structured interviews and start doing them right now.ā
Why we should all love structured interviews
Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of reasons why Iām a fan of the method:
Structured Interviews are twice as good at predicting candidate success š
Unstructured interviews have a 14% predictive improvement on job candidate outcomes. At 26%, structured interviews are nearly two times better.
Structured Interviews reduce bias and increase diversity
If you care at all about increasing the diversity of your workforce, you use structured interviews. Why?
Melissa Harrell, Ph.D. and former member of Googleās People Analytics team, put it this way:
...the approach [using structured interviews] is better for diversity because having planned questions and scoring rubrics mitigates our reliance on unconscious biases.Ā¹
Great things happen when you start using real data to make hiring decisions š©āš¬ š
Do you know what traits you need for a great hire? Do you know who is best in your organization at identifying talented people for a particular role? My guess is that you donāt, and even if you do, you wouldnāt be able to prove it with numbers. And you canāt improve what you donāt measure.
Structured interviews play a foundational role in creating a data-driven hiring culture. Once you start using data, you can determine who, what, and how your company hires the best people for each role at any given point in time. Candidly, itās empowering.
Itās also likely that few (if any) of your competitors are using structured interviews. Knowing what you need, how to evaluate people for it, and who best identifies high-performing candidates are a few of the compounding competitive advantages using data gives you.
Over time youāll be able to source more specifically, evaluate candidates accurately faster, reduce the risk of making bad hires, and provide a better overall candidate experience than your competitors.
Structured and Unstructured Interviews - Whatās the difference?
Unstructured interviews are best used when the interviewer probes the interviewee and tries to stay as open as possible to their responses. Simply put, unstructured interviews are essentially free-form conversations with few, or no, prearranged questions. They allow the interviewer to be spontaneous and āgo with the flowā of the conversation.
On the other hand, structured interviews follow a set of prearranged questions in the same order and theyāre primarily used to assess the interviewee or a situation. For example, when you go through Customs the agents always ask you the same set of questions in the same order. They do this because theyāre trying to assess whether or not youāre up to no good, not because theyāre particularly interested in your vacation.
When we evaluate candidates for a job weāre assessing their traits, skills, and thought processes, right? So it makes sense that we would apply structured interviews.
Summary
Structured interviews ask the same questions, in the same order, to all interviewees. Ideally, they also include a scoring rubric.
There are many advantages to using structured interviews, including: reducing bias, increasing diversity, and helping you and your organization get better at finding, evaluating, and onboarding talent.
Next week weāll talk more about the āHowā of setting up a structured interview hiring process. (Itās not as hard as you think)
Until then please donāt hesitate to send feedback, comment below, or share this post.
See you next week!
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