As recruiters and hiring managers, we often focus the bulk of our energy on finding qualified candidates and getting them to apply, but that’s only half the battle. Whether you wind up with two or 200 qualified applicants, you still face the critical task of interviewing them to decide which one is best to hire.
Here, we’ll share a structured, strategic approach for evaluating interview candidates and discuss why such an approach is so important in today’s market.
The Importance of an Effective Candidate Evaluation Process
Speed
Scheduling and conducting interviews is one of the most time-consuming parts of hiring, with recruiters allocating a whopping two-thirds of their time to it. At the same time, competitive candidates expect a near-instant response to their application and consistent, timely follow-up throughout the hiring process. This means time is of the essence.
A streamlined candidate evaluation process allows you to move through interviews quickly, so you don’t miss out on top candidates who are likely in the running for positions at multiple companies.
Scalability
When you’re a small company hiring for just a handful of positions a year, you might be able to manage without having a methodical evaluation framework. Once you begin to grow beyond that, however, you need a more systematic approach.
Following a candidate selection process that’s the same every time conserves resources and ensures that the process can be duplicated, whether you’re making dozens or thousands of hires.
Objectivity
Interview bias leads to more homogenous teams, which is detrimental to creativity and innovation. An objective candidate evaluation process helps you assess candidates equally while minimizing personal biases that can lead to hiring mistakes.
Related: Beware of These Subconscious Hiring Mistakes
Accuracy
At the end of the day, you need to select a candidate with the skills and qualifications to do the job. A thorough evaluation process ensures that you get the right person on the first try so that you don’t have to waste time and money repeating the hiring process all over again.
How to Evaluate Interview Candidates
Skills
This is one of the most important assessment criteria and one of the most straightforward to evaluate: Do they have the skills necessary to do the job?
Assess hard and soft skills, as these play into a candidate’s fit for a role. Consider using skills assessments to supplement your interview questions and judge a candidate’s abilities more accurately.
Relevance of background
Look at the positions the candidate has held prior to this one. Did they employ similar skill sets? Do they serve as a strong foundation for the candidate to build upon? What were they able to achieve in these roles?
Examine their background holistically, not just the most recent one or two jobs, to understand how their total experience might serve them in this new position.
Education and training
For some jobs, like positions in finance or healthcare, specialized training may be a minimum requirement to complete the duties of the job. Other positions may be more flexible with the acceptable type and level of education.
Look at their education basics, like degree completion and major, as well as details like specific coursework and additional technical credentials.
Career objectives
While this criterion isn’t typically specified in the job description, it can play a big role in a candidate’s success or failure in a position. Do their professional goals align with your organizational mission? Are they on a path that sets them up for a successful future at your company?
For example, let’s say a software QA candidate comes in with all the right technical qualifications. When asked about their career goals, they say they want to move into a leadership role in CX management someday. If your company is a third-party QA vendor, however, customer experience roles probably aren’t available, which could mean the candidate will be dissatisfied with their advancement opportunities.
While this alone isn’t a reason to disqualify a candidate, it does merit further consideration, so it’s a topic worth covering in the evaluation process.
Culture fit
Culture fit is notoriously one of the most challenging hiring criteria to uncover. It’s also frequently mischaracterized as an evaluation of the candidate’s personality–i.e., whether or not they’re similar to other members of the team–but this isn’t an accurate predictor of new hire success.
Instead, culture fit criteria should be based on whether the candidate aligns with how your company operates. Ask questions that will shed light on their values, work style, and communication preferences. Do they prefer to work alone or on a team? Do they prefer to address problems head-on or handle them with a softer touch?
Though these criteria have nothing to do with skills, they can make or break whether a candidate is the right fit to succeed on a particular team.
Related: Reasons Why Culture Fit is Important for Your Hiring Strategy
General impressions
While it’s important to weed out personal bias from the evaluation process, the interviewer’s general impressions of a candidate still have a place, as they can help you draw conclusions about their broader fit for the role.
Take the candidate’s attitude, for example. Did they come in with a warm smile and a strong handshake, or did they seem indifferent and cold? If they’re interviewing for a customer-facing role, the latter probably isn’t a good sign.
How the candidate presents themselves, such as whether they seem prepared for the interview, whether they came dressed in appropriate attire, and their body language, can also serve as useful data points in your evaluation.
Salary expectations
Asking about salary expectations is necessary to determine whether you can afford a candidate. If you need to expand your budget to acquire a top pick, this is good information to know during the evaluation process.
Weaknesses
You’re not just assessing candidates on the skills they possess; it’s also important to ascertain which criteria they lack. Allocate space in your assessment metric to note areas of weakness, like a lack of leadership experience or a missing technical credential, that could tip the scales in who you hire.
Get a second opinion
For many roles, two (or more) heads are better than one in evaluating interview candidates. Consider using interview techniques like panels and job auditions to bring more decision-makers into the hiring process and sharpen your evaluations.
Tips for Evaluating Candidates in an Interview Effectively
Follow these tips for successful candidate evaluation.
1. Review the role and the candidate in advance
A firm understanding of the job requirements is, first and foremost, important to be able to evaluate interviewees effectively. Review the job description, noting the key duties and minimum qualifications. Next, review the candidate’s resume, cover letter, and any other application materials, even if you’ve seen them before. This will help tailor your questioning and ensure you don’t skip over anything important, like getting more information about an employment gap.
2. Ask strategic questions
Coming up with strategic questions ahead of time is crucial for an accurate evaluation. Using the job description as a guide, develop a list of questions that cover the candidate’s background, technical skills, soft skills, and cultural fit, along with behavioral and situational questions to understand their work habits. Ask every candidate the same questions to ensure fairness.
3. Take notes
Spend the bulk of the interview actively listening. Don’t rely on your memory; take notes to help you keep track of candidates’ responses and your impressions of them.
4. Ask follow-up questions
While having a pre-set list of questions is recommended, it’s not ironclad. Go off script and ask further questions if you need clarification or if a candidate mentions something that piques your interest.
5. Use role-playing scenarios
It’s a great strategy for certain roles to make interviews more interactive with role-playing scenarios where the candidate demonstrates how they might behave in an on-the-job situation. For example, if you’re hiring for a tech support role, you might pose a hypothetical problem and ask the interviewee to help you troubleshoot it.
6. Use a standardized scoring system
A standardized scoring system gives structure to your assessment and ensures candidates are being compared on a consistent scale. You might rate answers with a numeric score of 1 to 5, use a list of qualifications, and check yes, no, or maybe to indicate the candidate’s aptitude, or any other system that makes sense for your hiring criteria.
Related: Interview Scoring Sheets
7. Verify the information
Use background checks, reference checks, and skills assessments to get third-party verification of the information you learn during interviews. This will further help avoid hiring mistakes.
Find the perfect fit for your team.
Speak to one of our experienced recruiters today.
What Not to Do When Evaluating Job Candidates
Beware of these common mistakes interviewers often make.
1. Being too informal
While a casual vibe can help interviewees feel more relaxed, too little structure makes comparing candidates objectively and fairly impossible. Determining questions ahead of time and sticking to a standard scoring system will allow you to have conversations that are similar but distinct, which makes it easier to compare candidates against one another.
2. Jumping to conclusions
First impressions are strong, but they’re not always right. Beware of the halo effect, which lets one positive attribute influence your entire perception of a candidate, and its opposite, the horn effect, where one negative quality completely shades an interviewer’s evaluation. Make a thorough assessment, weighing all aspects of a candidate and minimizing personal biases.
3. Talking too much
It’s easy to get overzealous and spend too much time talking up why the candidate should want the job. This is a mistake and negates the whole purpose of the interview, which is to hear from the candidate. Spend 25% of the time talking and 75% listening. Be sure to leave time at the end for a candidate to ask any of their own questions; that’s the appropriate time for you to elaborate.
4. Overemphasizing skills
There’s no denying that technical skills are important. However, they’re not the be-all, end-all of a successful hire. Soft skills like communication and cultural elements like work style and values can play an even bigger role in whether a new hire will work out. Be careful not to rely too heavily on hard skills and avoid throwing out an otherwise great candidate because they’re missing a single technical qualification.
5. Relying on one person’s opinion
Single-person hiring decisions are much more prone to bias and mistakes. Incorporating multiple decision-makers allows you to gain diverse perspectives that can strengthen your hiring accuracy.
6. Skipping reference checks
Remember, a great interview is not indicative of past performance. While checking references takes a lot of time, it’s the only way to verify a candidate’s prior experience and get the full picture of their professional track record.
Let Us Help You Streamline Your Interview Evaluation Process
Interviewing, like any skill, takes time to master. Entrusting your candidate evaluations to the seasoned experts at 4 Corner Resources can save you time and avoid faulty hiring. Our team of recruiting professionals can streamline your application sourcing, screening, and interviewing, providing you with skilled and vetted candidates who fit your company culture and budgetary requirements. Simplify your hiring by contacting us today to get started.
