Designing an effective interview process will bring the right talent to your organization. According to Leadership IQ, 46% of new employees will fail after 18 months, while 82% of their managers have recognized failure before but did nothing about it.
Most of these failures can be attributed to attitudes and interpersonal relationships rather than to a lack of technical skills. Structured interviews can help address these issues. In the Structured Interview process, establishing an interview toolkit is a way to standardize the process and can increase your chances of selecting the best group of candidates.
But before starting to pour resources and implement structured interviews, HR should clearly understand the purpose and benefits of this method along with the actual situation of the company itself. This will help businesses best practice structured interviews, avoiding misunderstandings and wasting resources.
The following article will help outline four important questions that should be considered before creating an interview kit.
1. What are the must-have qualifications and skills?
Knowing the kind of role requirements to look for the ideal candidate is almost like engineering a tailored-made solution for some specific business needs. Consider the components explained below:
- Mastery of technical skills: The skills necessary within the role
- Soft skills: Interpersonal abilities that allow for successful collaboration
- Credentials and experience: Qualifications to establish expertise
The objective is not just to get the tally of specifications. Here, these skills are to be assessed in a more practical setting. When writing the questions, it is a good idea to design situations replicating a few real-world problems.
For example: "Explain how you would deal with [specific challenge relevant to the role]. Provide clear steps in your problem-solving process."
This will help to test not only competencies but also the situations in which their competencies will be applicable and relevant to the organization.
2. What needs to be done to identify culture fits?
For many companies, cultural fit is hard to establish throughout an interview process effectively. Traditional methods often fail to capture the nuisances of company culture, leading to misaligned hires that may further decrease team dynamics, productivity, and employee retention.
The consequence of a bad cultural fit can be terrible. Misaligned employees become disengaged, and over time, productivity decreases; this might turn into bad workplace dynamics. In such misalignment, turnover can increase, which means more use of time and resources for an organization through recurring recruitment. Moreover, failed hires in succession could further depress the teams' morale and restrain the company's ability to retain the culture it wants to preserve.
To identify and translate the company culture into the interview process, do this:
Establish behavioral indicators:
- For each cultural pillar, define specific behaviors that exemplify it.
- Create a matrix linking these behaviors to measurable outcomes.
Develop a cultural fit matrix with the company criteria, examples:
Multi-touchpoint assessment:
- Implement a series of interactions beyond the formal interview.
- Include team lunches, work simulations, or shadowing opportunities.
Cultural showcase:
- Designate portions of the interview for candidates to experience the company's culture.
- Allow them to interact with various team members in different settings.
3. What experience is the most important?
Based on past experiences that have led to success in similar positions, you will more easily pinpoint critical behaviors and competencies. From there, behavioral questions will be able to get at how candidates have handled such situations.
Consider:
- Key Achievements: What achievements have previous successful employees in this role accomplished?
- Challenges faced: What were some of the setbacks, and how did they overcome them?
- Relevant Scenarios: Are there specific scenarios or problems they should be familiar with?
Example Question: "Tell me about a time when you faced a significant challenge at work and how you overcame it."
4. How will this help us evaluate and compare candidates objectively?
Personal bias in hiring can instantly wipe out all the hard work. If subjective likes and dislikes blur the lines of objective criteria, not only are team efforts compromised, but opportunities are lost, morale is low, and legal risks are increased. In these ways, it can affect team performance and company culture in the long run.
Team alignment is critical to evaluating candidates fairly. Depending on the level of agreement of the hiring team on the criteria and evaluation process, judgments are diffused and less prone to personal bias. This alignment increases engagement and integrates diverse perspectives, leading to better hiring outcomes.
To do this, it is necessary to adopt a multifaceted approach that prepares the team to evaluate candidates objectively and collaboratively. First, clear evaluation criteria must be based on job requirements and cultural fit. These criteria need to be measurable and have a clear correlation with job performance.
Second, bias awareness training is delivered through workshops, which primarily address recognizing and minimizing unconscious bias, along with resources to educate the team about it.
Third, create appropriate interview kits and include cross-checking and input from different stakeholders. This will help make the interview kit more fair and consistent.
Finally, organize meetings to discuss and agree on the interpretation of evaluation criteria; Use sample candidates or those who have been hired previously to use case studies for tailoring exercises.
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