top of page
linus8698

Standardize Success: A Strategic Approach to Hiring

Updated: Oct 8

A structured interview process is invaluable for organizations seeking to enhance their hiring effectiveness and promote fairness. By standardizing questions and evaluation criteria, structured interviews provide a consistent framework that allows hiring managers and their teams to objectively assess candidates, reducing biases that can arise in unstructured formats.


Here’s a sample outline to use when a new role is approved and the hiring cycle is ready to begin:

1. Identify what you need: Get clear on the role and skills required and define this in a clear job description

2. Standardize the process: Create a simple, repeatable interview plan (e.g., determine how many interviews, and who from your team is involved in each).

3. Prep interview questions: Focus on both skills and cultural alignment.

4. Create a scoring system: Make it easy to compare candidates objectively.

5. Train your team: Make sure everyone’s on the same page with their role and expectations during an interview cycle

6. Keep candidates in the loop: Share the process and timeline upfront.

7. Gather feedback: Continuously improve based on feedback from candidates and interviewers.


Let’s expand on some of the steps mentioned above!


Whether your company has an ATS or not, documenting an interview process in a Google doc or a platform like Notion is better than nothing, a lot better! Having a single source of truth with documented interview assessments allows for information to be stored instead of “remembered” for interviewers. Documentation also allows for quick and easy sharing of interview feedback, which is very helpful if someone who conducted an interview goes on vacation the day after a screening!


Structured interviews lead to improved hiring outcomes. By focusing on job-related competencies and incorporating behavioral questions, organizations can better gauge a candidate’s potential to succeed in their specific environment. Software engineers who have interviewed at enterprise organizations strongly prefer being tested on real-world technical problems instead of the dreaded leet-code interviews that many enterprise organizations use to test coding aptitude. 


Structured interviews contribute to a better candidate experience. Candidates appreciate the clarity and transparency of a consistent process, which allows them to prepare more effectively. This can foster a positive perception of the organization, even among those who may not be selected for the position.


Documenting interview questions to be asked, patterns, and anti-patterns for interviewers to look for during conversations all help in ensuring consistency and helpful assessments which will be used to make hiring decisions. Hiring managers can share interview plans with interviewers before interviews begin to flush out any ambiguity and clarify expectations for the interviewers. When every candidate is asked the same set of questions, it ensures that the evaluation of multiple candidates can be compared with minimal bias. This consistency helps compare candidates more fairly and enables interviewers to identify traits that predict success in the role.


Creating and documenting interview questions allows organizations to have more employees available to conduct interviews which is very handy when companies have small teams. When more employees can conduct interviews, the need for rescheduling calls is reduced when emergencies or illnesses arise. 


Scorecards and consistent interview questions assist hiring managers in making decisions to hire. Holding an interview panel debrief is also invaluable after any candidate has completed all conversations as most interviews are conducted by future teammates of the candidate. Virtual or in-person meetings where teams can openly discuss and explain their feedback/scorecards build team chemistry and are another form of training individual contributors who aspire to be hiring managers. These debriefs often help hiring managers make more obvious decisions to hire as the debriefs allow for more personable feedback from their team.


Establishing a grading scale like scores of 1-5 or “Strong yes/Yes/No/Definitely not” allows interviewers to clearly define their experience with any candidate. This is a great way to start training individual contributors to think like hiring managers! When scores are given, individual contributors gain confidence their opinions matter. 


A structured interview system protects organizations from compliance and legal risks. By documenting the interview process and decisions made, companies can demonstrate that their hiring practices are equitable and free from discrimination.

Implementing a structured interview process is a strategic move that benefits both employers and candidates. It promotes consistency, enhances candidate experience, improves hiring quality, and helps organizations maintain fairness and legal compliance—ultimately leading to a stronger, more diverse workforce.

22 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page