Make Equitable Hiring Decisions With Structured Interviews (Tool)

Hiring the most qualified candidates for open roles can be challenging because there are so many opportunities for bias to creep into the process. To prevent these biases from factoring into decision-making, Catalyst recommends using a modified structured interview method as part of hiring procedures. Inclusive organizations embed equity throughout an employee’s journey, from before the hiring process even begins, through hiring, career progression, and retention. Recognizing that one-on-one structured interviews—an organizational best practice—take time, hiring teams may use additional interview formats. The following recommendations on how to prepare for, and conduct, structured interviews also may assist in reducing bias during other processes.

How Bias Infiltrates the Hiring Process

• Implicit bias: Everyone holds implicit biases which are associations or attitudes about people or social groups that operate beyond a person’s control and awareness, inform perceptions, and can influence decision-making and behavior. There are many types of implicit bias—including affinity bias, availability bias, and confirmation bias—all of which can crop up during interviews, even when interviewers think they are entering into conversations with a non-judgmental and open mind.
• Perceived likeability: Evidence demonstrates that unstructured interviews—where each candidate is asked questions not consistent across the candidate pool—are riddled with bias.¹ In unstructured interviews, some questions may have been prepared ahead of time, but many also are asked spontaneously, based on what the interviewer finds interesting during the conversation. These questions are often fueled by whatever the candidate is talking about that the interviewer connects with, such as a mutual acquaintance, previous employer, or shared history or passion. While this may seem like a good way to gauge how well a candidate will fit with the team, hiring for “likeability” increases the ways in which bias can influence decision-making.²
• Co-interviewer influence: Panel interviews—when two or more people question a candidate at the same time—carry additional risk since interviewers may influence one another during or after the process.³

If coordinating schedules is an issue, panel interviews may be helpful, as long as interviewers follow a pre-set protocol of questions and each person immediately and independently fills out and locks in their score sheets before entering the evaluation phase. Whether interviews are conducted one-on-one or by a panel, interviewers should never discuss candidates with one another until the joint evaluation discussion.

De-Bias the Interview Process With Structured Interviews

Structured interviews, sometimes called standardized interviews, can help de-bias the interview process and guide hiring committees to more meritocratic and fair results. They are a tool HR and hiring managers can use not only to improve the experiences of candidates going through the process, but also to ground decisions in equitable, skills-based data. Although sometimes the structured interview method refers to each candidate being asked identical questions in the same order by multiple interviewers, the modified method presented here allows for some variety while maintaining rigor.

Structured interviews feature:

• Competency-based questions, which are crafted beforehand and asked of all the candidates.
• Interviewer score sheets.
• A comparative group discussion after all candidates have been scored.⁴
• Guidance for conducting interviews.

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• Many recruiting software products and Applicant Tracking Systems now have structured interviewing features and scorecards built into the system. Check if your hiring software has tools to facilitate this approach.⁵
• If you do not have access through your hiring software, the accompanying worksheets will get you started.

1. Construct innovative interview questions

• Prior to reviewing candidate résumés, go through the job description and extract the competencies and skills desired for the position.
• Draft a structured set of questions for all members of the hiring committee to use.
• Each question should probe along fair and objective criteria, mapping back to the previously identified job-related competencies and skills.
• Reframe “have you done” questions with “how would you approach” questions, which let candidates demonstrate how they are able to think through a scenario.⁶
• Avoid closed or leading questions. For example, ask about a candidate’s experience growing a team rather than if they’ve been a people manager, to give them more opportunity to expand upon their skills.⁷
• Determine which questions each interviewer will ask.
• While each candidate should be asked questions that inquire about the same set of competencies, each interviewer should ask different questions to avoid redundancy.
• Each interviewer should ask at least one question per competency. See the figure below for three different questions that probe for the same competency.

2. Conduct the interviews

• When conducting virtual interviews, consider asking candidates to use a virtual or blurred background.⁸
• What’s in a candidate’s background on a video call may influence viewpoints and open the door to biased judgements. ⁹
• Each interviewer should have a copy of the Candidate Interview Form populated with the agreed-upon structured questions.
• Consider letting each candidate know in advance that all prospects are asked the same questions in the same order to facilitate transparency around the process.¹⁰
• Resist the temptation to ask any questions that haven’t been prepared beforehand.
• Interviewers should numerically score each answer immediately after it is given.
• Numerical ratings are less likely to affect the mental models, or impressions, that people tend to develop when talking with others,¹¹ which can often be biased.

Download Candidate Interview Form

3. Evaluate the candidate pool

• After all the interviews are complete, interviewers should compile their scores from the Candidate Interview Forms for each candidate onto the Interview Review Form or a similar form if using hiring software with these features.
• Scores should not be shared before the discussion to avoid biases that can occur during meetings when the most influential voices in the room tend to take over. ¹²
• Data from all the Interview Review Forms should be transferred to the Interview Outcome Form.
• The full hiring committee should use the Interview Outcome Form to conduct a joint evaluation discussion of the candidates.
• Candidate skill sets and experiences should be compared across the board on competencies, allowing the committee to make a data-backed decision about who will move to the next round or receive the job offer.
• When evaluating candidates, check informal judgments of cultural fit that are often a proxy for feeling comfortable with someone.
• We tend to feel more relaxed with people who are like us, which can introduce bias.

Download Interview Review Form
Download Interview Outcome Form

Endnotes

1. Bohnet, I. (2016, April 18). How to take the bias out of interviews. Harvard Business Review.
2. Carnahan, B. (2023, May 25). 6 best practices for creating an inclusive and equitable interview process. Harvard Business School.
3. Bohnet, I. (2016, April 18). How to take the bias out of interviews. Harvard Business Review.
4. Bohnet, I. (2016, April 18). How to take the bias out of interviews. Harvard Business Review.
5. Greenhouse and SmartRecruiters are two companies that have software that automate structured interviews. Please note: Catalyst cannot recommend or endorse specific products. Better decision-making starts with structured hiring. Greenhouse; Interview scorecard. SmartRecruiters.
6. Merchant, N. (2019, March 22). Stop eliminating perfectly good candidates by asking them the wrong questions. Harvard Business Review.
7. Ferrari, S. (2021, January 5). 8 thoughtful ways to build more inclusive interview practices. Fast Company.
8. Ferrari, S. (2021, January 5). 8 thoughtful ways to build more inclusive interview practices. Fast Company.
9. Carnahan, B. (2023, May 25). 6 best practices for creating an inclusive and equitable interview process. Harvard Business School.
10. Wilson, P. (2020, August 27). Avoiding bias in interviews and hiring for performance. Forbes.
11. Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2019, March 4). A structured approach to strategic decisions. MIT Sloan Management Review.
12. Tarki, A. (2019, August 13). How to avoid groupthink when hiring. Harvard Business Review.
13. Forging career pathways for people from marginalized racial and ethnic groups (Practices). (2022). Catalyst.