Summary: In a structured interview, candidates are asked primarily prepared and standardized questions as part of the interview process.
Structured interviews involve asking candidates standardized questions to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This brief outlines the benefits and best practices for structured interviews.
Structured Interview
Interviews are among the most common methods for evaluating applicants and determining who is most appropriate for the job role under assessment. These can take the form of one-on-one interviews or panel interviews in which each candidate takes questions from multiple parties. They can also vary in style from rigidly structured to more unstructured and informal. A structured interview is one in which standardized questions are asked in a predetermined and consistent order so that, as far as possible, every candidate receives the same interview experience.
Typically, a structured interview will be built around questions that address a list of key competencies, skills, and behaviors required for the successful fulfillment of the role. The questions are carefully constructed to best elicit the information required to assess the candidate’s abilities in each area of ability. Most structured interviews also come with a predetermined and objective scoring system, which allows for the straightforward comparison of candidates once all interviews are complete.
While they can be used in isolation, many businesses choose to supplement structured interviews with other assessment methods, including skills tests or example assignments, in order to get a more rounded appraisal of the applicant’s suitability. Due to its consistency, a structured interview is considered by many to be one of the fairest and most objective methods for candidate assessment.
Benefits of Structured Interviews
Each form of interview and applicant assessment has distinct benefits. For structured interviews, these include the implementation of a fair process with a reduction in bias, a consistent experience for all candidates, a straightforward method of comparison, and an evidence-based justification for hiring decisions.
1. Consistent Process
The core principle behind a structured interview is consistency. The same questions are asked in the same order, often by the same interviewer. Doing this creates a fair platform, with every candidate being assessed in exactly the same way. It allows for a clear scoring metric to be determined so that every interviewee can be assessed quantitatively as well as qualitatively. It also ensures nothing is overlooked as every pre-planned question is asked to every candidate.
The alternative, a less-structured interview, allows questioning and discussion to take a more free-form path. This makes every interview different and leaves room for questions to be missed or asked in different ways, provoking more varied responses. Lack of structure exposes the recruiter to accusations of being unfair or inconsistent in its hiring process. The uniformity of a structured interview may seem overly formal or rigid, but the firm structure can, and often does, prove invaluable as an evaluation technique.
2. Bias Reduction
Hand-in-hand with creating fairness through consistency is the removal of bias through structure. Interviewers are human, and it is easy for bias, whether conscious or unconscious, to creep into the evaluation process. Without a uniform set of questions to stick to, an interviewer may allow their preferences, prejudices, or preconceptions to affect not just their judgment but the way in which they conduct an interview. This doesn’t just mean asking different questions but potentially framing them differently. An interviewer might provide a different level of guidance, place questions in a different context, change the focus of the interview, be less rigorous or demanding to certain clients, or even allow the conversation to drift away from what is relevant and into shared interests. All this is natural, and we handle our interactions with different people in different ways. In an interview situation, however, this represents bias and can be unfair.
Sticking to a rigid set of questions, asked in a specified manner, helps eliminate many of these dangers and thus reduce bias, allowing every candidate the opportunity to be evaluated based on the same criteria and on the qualities they bring to the role, not how well they interact with the specific interviewer that is charged with evaluating them.
3. Straightforward Comparison
Just like sporting events in which every competitor performs their efforts within strictly defined parameters, a structured interview is one of the most effective recruitment solutions for a fair and direct comparison of candidates. By asking the same questions in the same order and same manner, the interviewer will receive sets of answers that can be compared more easily against each other. To boost this, many structured interviews are conducted using a standardized scoring method, which allows interviewers to translate each answer into a numeral figure that can be totaled or averaged and measured against the scores of other applicants. Whether used as the final indicator of suitability or as a jumping-off point for evidence-based discussion, these figures can be invaluable in identifying and agreeing on the best person for the role.
4. Clear Accountability
A further benefit of the consistent, comparable, and evidence-based candidate information that can be gained from a structured interview is the ability to later rely on it when justifying the hiring decisions made. This is useful for applicant feedback and internal appraisals. It can also be valuable if it becomes necessary to demonstrate fairness and objectivity due to legal action from unsuccessful or unsatisfied candidates. Structured interviews show clear efforts have been made to construct a level playing field and ensure every applicant is considered without prejudice and on merit alone. Creating legal defensibility for hiring choices puts the business in a good position should disputes or complaints arrive at any stage in the employment cycle.
Best Practices for Structured Interviews
To achieve its goal effectively, a structured interview should be designed and executed with fairness and constancy at the forefront. Over time, several best practices have been developed to help ensure this is achieved. These include:
1. Competency-based Questions
When consistency and easy comparison are the goal, a structured interview is only as useful as the answers it generates. Offering each candidate an identical interview is one thing, but if the responses are so wildly varied as to be incomparable, many of the benefits will be negated. For this reason, it is often preferred to use competency-based questions which are designed to test the candidate’s specific skills, qualities, and behaviors in relation to tasks and situations that are required for the role they wish to fill.
A typical competency-based question usually starts with the words “Tell me about a situation when…” followed by a specific workplace scenario, such as dealing with a challenging client, disagreeing with a colleague, or making an error and needing to correct it. These types of questions not only help quickly focus on the various skills a candidate has but also invite a consistent style of answering, which allows for easy comparison between applicants. For example, interviewees are often encouraged to answer competency-based questions using the STAR technique, which involves outlining the situation, stating the specific task or problem, the action the subject took, and the result of that action. This is often followed up by the interviewee evaluating the outcome of the situation and making suggestions for improvements should a similar challenge arise again. This question-and-answer style allows the interviewer to easily mark how each response indicates the ability of the candidate.
2. Scoring System
The advantage of a structured, competency-based question is that the interviewer who delivered it is not fishing for general information; they know what answer they want. While the specifics may vary from candidate to candidate, every answer given should clearly prove the interviewee understands what they are being asked to demonstrate and that they can demonstrate it. Because of this, it is possible for these answers to be marked with a numerical scoring system for even more accurate assessment and comparison.
A scale of one to five is often used as a structured interview scoring system. One might mean the candidate did not demonstrate competency at all or even that they understood what they were being asked to show. Two could mean the competency was only partially demonstrated, three that the minimum requirements were met, four a strong answer that showed experience and proficiency, and five for a complete answer showcasing exceptional competency. Once the scores have been allocated, comparison across all candidates’ responses becomes simple.
3. Interviewer Training
In most businesses, interviewing candidates seeking employment is not the sole duty of the person(s) charged with performing the interview. Managers, department heads, technical leads, or many other team members are often asked to step in as interviewers in addition to their core roles. This means it is vital that anybody asked to conduct a structured interview or assessment of any kind is properly trained in how to do this.
An interviewer should understand the purpose and importance of the structured questions. They should be trained in how to ask questions consistently and avoid going off-script, opening the door to bias, or influencing answers. They should also be clear on what is expected from question responses and how to score them fairly and objectively. Only if it is conducted correctly can a structured interview achieve the maximum level of effectiveness.
4. Test and Review
Before integrating a structured interview format into a business’ ongoing recruitment process, a proper assessment of its effectiveness should be carried out. It is not good enough to simply design a list of questions on paper and assume they will yield the required results. Any business planning to deliver a series of structured interviews should first run tests to evaluate their success. This could either be from performing dummy interviews within the company or applying the questions to a small pilot recruitment, preferably for a less vital role within the business. Doing this and gaining feedback from both interviewees and interviewers allows an organization to identify flaws in the questions, delivery, or scoring system and make corrections and adjustments before rolling it out in full.
In line with this, it is also important for any structured interview process, both in the test stage and after rollout, to be fully documented at every stage. This includes training notes, questions, answers, scoring criteria, scores, feedback, and any criticism, disputes, or issues that arise. This creates a store of evidence that can be used, if required, to later justify the decisions made and show how they were reached. It also serves as valuable reference material for the review, reassessment, and development of the process to make continued improvements.
5. Combine Methods
Finally, the best practices for using structured interviews include accepting the limitations of the format and supplementing it with additional assessment methods. While the consistency, fairness, and compatibility of a structured interview are incredibly useful, an interview of this kind alone will not necessarily provide the information needed to fully evaluate every candidate. By combining it with other tools such as skills tests, example tasks, and personality assessments, a business will gather a much more complete and well-rounded picture of each candidate, allowing for more accurate and confident decision-making.
Conclusion
When assessing multiple candidates for a single role, structured interviews are an excellent method for helping to ensure objectivity, consistency, and – above all – fairness. When performed effectively, interviews of this kind are also useful for generating quantitative and qualitative responses and can be transposed into a numerical scoring system to allow straightforward comparison between applicants. It is important, however, that structured interviews are properly planned, fully tested, and carried out by well-trained individuals. For complete candidate evaluation, it is also recommended that structured interviews are used in conjunction with other assessment techniques.
Authors:
Marcel is an experienced journalist and Public Relations expert with an honours degree in Journalism and bylines with a range of major brands.
