Recruiting Tips: 3 Steps to a Standardized Interview Process

Once a candidate has been qualified by your internal recruiter and is progressing through the interview process, you must ensure that your recruiting process is standardized. Doing so will allow you to make a fair comparison of candidates while also complying with discrimination employment laws.

3 Steps to a Standardized Interview Process

1) Determine Who the Interviewers Will Be

Make sure the same group of individuals is involved throughout the process and interviews all candidates for a specific role/group.

2) Develop a List of Interview Questions

It’s a fair assumption that different interviewers will be asking different questions. Instead of heading into the interview without an agenda, develop a set of standardized questions delegated to each interviewer. This way, the same questions will be asked of each candidate, therefore making a fair comparison between candidates.
Recruiting Tip: Be sure to integrate behavioral interviewing questions into each interview.
These types of questions are designed to dive into how a candidate would or has behaved in specific situations. Behavioral interview questions dig beneath the surface in order to discover the true aptitude of the candidate. Including these questions can certainly benefit the interview process.

3) Take Notes and Record Reactions to the Interviews Immediately

During the interview, be sure to take thorough notes. Afterwards, compile these notes along with your overall impression into a document that can be potentially shared with others on your team. It is important to take notes quickly after the interview has commenced in order to record the most accurate depiction of the interview.
Once each interviewer has spoken with the candidate and has covered their section of questions, you can compare and contrast notes, impressions and feedback in a compliant, fair manner.

Benefits of a Standardized Interview Process: Don’t Get Caught Without One!

Without standardization in your interview process you risk the chance of not clearly understanding the quality of a candidate, but also of potentially missing out on an excellent candidate by not asking the right questions, or comparing them unfairly against others.

What tips do you have to help recruiters and hiring managers improve and standardize their interview process?