Interviews, alternatives and adjustments

For the interviewer to bear in mind:

• Make sure that you are treating all interviewees equally. Come up with consistent questions and an agreed scoring scheme for the responses.
• If you are weighting questions such that certain questions count more than others, make sure that the questions that assess the primary skills you need are weighted heaviest, and more secondary or peripheral skills are weighted less.
• Avoid allowing subconscious bias to interfere with a fair interview process. Make sure that your assessment only considers relevant information, and not body language, accent, dress, height, race, age, sex, or nation of origin.
• Bear in mind someone’s ability to describe relevant past experiences as an indicator of how they actually performed in the past or will perform in the future.
• Focus on the skills and experiences of the interviewee, and not how eloquently they speak.
• Remember, there is little evidence that untrained managers can assess how well an individual candidate ‘fits’ organisational culture in an interview.