Hiring Interview Process and Guidelines Template

*Disclaimer from Trainual

Please note that this template is not a legal document. And its information is for general knowledge and educational purposes only — not to provide advice on how to structure your organization's processes and/or policies. Meaning, this template should never be taken in place of legal advice. 

To use, you will need to customize this template to meet all your company's requirements. So, please update it with any and all relevant information before rolling it out (like deleting this step)!

Introduction

Why We Have a Process for Hiring Interviews

At our company, we recognize the critical importance of a structured and fair hiring process. To ensure consistency, fairness, and legal compliance across all our interviews, we have documented a separate process specifically for hiring interviews. 

This document serves as a comprehensive training resource for interviewers and is an integral part of our broader Hiring Process Checklist. By providing detailed guidelines and standardized procedures, we equip our interviewers with the tools they need to conduct effective, unbiased evaluations of candidates. This dedicated approach not only enhances the quality of our hiring decisions but also reinforces our commitment to diversity and inclusivity within our workforce. 

Our goal is to create a transparent and professional interview experience for all candidates, reflecting our company's values and driving our ongoing success. This process lays the foundation for achieving these objectives, ensuring that every team member involved in the hiring process is thoroughly prepared and aligned with our company standards.

Interview Prep

Overview and Interview Team

The interview phase of our hiring process is meticulously structured into three key sections — HR interviews, hiring manager interviews, and peer interviews — each designed to provide a holistic evaluation of every candidate.

HR Interview: This initial phase is crucial for assessing how well candidates align with our company's core values and culture. A member of the HR team evaluates general competencies and the candidate’s motivation, laying the groundwork for more in-depth discussions related to the specific role.

Hiring Manager Interview: During this stage, the hiring manager delves into the candidate's technical skills and relevant experience to determine how well their expertise meets the job requirements. This conversation is critical for understanding the candidate’s potential role-specific contributions.

Peer Interview: Incorporating team members in the interview process adds a valuable dimension, focusing on the candidate’s ability to collaborate and mesh with the team. Peer interviews offer insights into how the candidate might fit into team dynamics and contribute to ongoing projects.

This structured interview process is essential for assessing candidates across various dimensions — ensuring they are not only a fit for the specific job but also align with the department's goals and the overarching company culture. It’s a comprehensive approach designed to gauge the candidate’s abilities, their understanding of the department's objectives, and their potential impact on our company’s ethos. This strategic alignment helps in making informed and effective hiring decisions.

Interview Team

This process involves various stakeholders to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of each candidate:

• HR Team: Conducts the initial interview to assess fit with company culture and values, as well as general competencies and motivation.
• Hiring Manager: Evaluates technical skills, relevant experience, and the alignment of the candidate’s expertise with the specific job requirements.
• Peers: Team members who will work directly with the candidate, focusing on assessing the candidate’s ability to collaborate and integrate within the team.

While peer interviews provide an important perspective on how a candidate might interact with their potential colleagues and contribute to team dynamics, the final hiring decision is collaboratively made by the HR team and the hiring manager. This joint decision-making process ensures that all aspects of the candidate's fit—cultural, technical, and interpersonal—are considered comprehensively before extending an employment offer. This structured approach helps maintain a balanced and fair evaluation process, aligning with the company’s standards and expectations.

Scheduling and Logistics

The HR team is responsible for ensuring that the logistics and scheduling of interviews are seamlessly managed. This process begins with the coordination of calendars to find suitable times that accommodate the availability of the candidate, hiring manager, and interview panel members. The HR team utilizes the shared Google Calendar to check for scheduling conflicts and ensure that each participant is informed and prepared for the interview.

For interviews that require travel or are conducted remotely, the HR team will coordinate all necessary arrangements. This includes booking conference rooms, setting up video conferencing tools, and ensuring that all technology is tested and functional prior to the interviews. Detailed instructions and an agenda are sent to both the interviewers and the candidate ahead of time to ensure everyone is clear about the format, timings, and expectations.

Bias Training

Our bias training for interviewers is designed to promote fairness and inclusivity in our hiring process. This crucial training ensures that all candidates are assessed objectively, without the influence of unconscious biases that might skew judgment and decision-making.

Key Components of Bias Training:

• Understanding Unconscious Bias: Interviewers begin by learning what unconscious bias is and how it can inadvertently affect perceptions and evaluations. We discuss various types of biases, such as affinity bias, confirmation bias, and the halo effect, providing real-world examples of how these biases can appear during the interview process.
• Recognizing Personal Biases: Through self-assessment exercises and scenario-based training, interviewers are encouraged to reflect on their own potential biases. This introspection helps in identifying personal patterns that may impact fair judgment.
• Strategies to Mitigate Bias: We equip our interviewers with practical tools and strategies to minimize biases. This includes structuring interviews around a consistent set of questions, using standardized scoring rubrics, and involving diverse panels in the interview process to provide multiple perspectives.
• Continuous Learning: Bias training is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. We stress the importance of continuous education and provide resources for interviewers to keep learning and improving.

By addressing biases head-on, we aim to create a more equitable hiring process, ensuring that all candidates have an equal opportunity to showcase their skills and potential. This training not only enhances the quality of our hiring decisions but also supports our broader commitment to diversity and inclusion within the workplace.

Effective Questioning Techniques

Effective questioning is a critical skill for interviewers as it directly influences the quality of information gathered from candidates, ultimately affecting the hiring decisions. Our training program equips interviewers with the tools to craft questions that are insightful, fair, and aligned with our organizational goals.

Key Aspects of Effective Questioning Techniques:

• Question Design: Interviewers learn to formulate clear, open-ended questions that encourage candidates to share comprehensive and detailed responses. We focus on behavioral questions, such as "Can you describe a situation where you had to overcome a significant challenge?" These questions help assess past behavior as a predictor of future performance.
• Situational Questions: Interviewers are trained to ask situational questions to gauge a candidate's problem-solving and decision-making skills. For example, "How would you handle a project with tight deadlines and limited resources?" This type of questioning helps understand a candidate’s approach to typical work scenarios.
• Active Listening: Effective questioning also involves active listening. Interviewers are trained to listen attentively, observe non-verbal cues, and follow up with probing questions that delve deeper into the candidate's experiences and competencies.
• Consistency and Fairness: The training emphasizes the importance of asking the same core set of questions to all candidates for a specific role to ensure fairness and comparability in their responses.

This structured approach to questioning enables interviewers to elicit valuable insights while maintaining a respectful and engaging interaction with candidates. It ensures that our evaluations are thorough, equitable, and aligned with our company’s values and the specific requirements of the job.

What You Can and Cannot Ask

When conducting interviews, it is crucial for interviewers to be aware of and adhere to legal standards to ensure compliance and avoid discrimination. Our training includes a comprehensive overview of legal considerations that govern what can and cannot be asked during an interview.

Questions Interviewers Can Ask:

• Can you perform the essential functions of this job with or without accommodation?
• How do you handle stress and pressure in a work environment?
• What are your professional strengths and weaknesses?
• Why are you interested in this position?

Questions Interviewers Cannot Ask:

• Are you married or do you have children?
• What is your religious affiliation?
• How old are you?
• What country are you originally from?
• Do you have any health issues or disabilities?

The goal is to focus on questions that relate directly to the candidate’s ability to perform the job requirements. Understanding these legal boundaries helps prevent discriminatory practices and fosters a fair, respectful interview process that evaluates candidates on their merits and fit for the role.

Standardized Interview Question Bank

Creating a Standardized Interview Question Bank ensures consistency in how candidates are evaluated, focusing solely on their skills, experiences, and fit for the role. Here are 10 questions that can be included in the question bank to provide a comprehensive view of each candidate's capabilities:

1. Can you describe a project that you led successfully? What were the challenges, and how did you address them?
2. How do you prioritize your work when you have multiple deadlines to meet?
3. Tell me about a time you had to learn a new skill to complete a task. How did you approach the learning process?
4. Can you provide an example of how you handled a disagreement with a team member?
5. What motivates you in your work, and how do you stay motivated during challenging projects?
6. Describe a situation where you had to adapt quickly to changes at work. What was the outcome?
7. What strategies do you use to ensure clear and effective communication with team members who are not co-located with you?
8. Can you discuss an instance when you had to analyze complex data to make a decision? What was the process, and what were the results?
9. How do you handle receiving constructive criticism? Can you share a specific example?
10. Why are you interested in this position at our company, and what do you think you can contribute to our team?

These questions are designed to elicit responses that reveal the candidate's problem-solving abilities, teamwork, adaptability, communication skills, and motivation—crucial attributes that align with the demands of most roles.

Conducting Interviews

Types of Interviews

Our interview process is designed to be flexible and accommodating, utilizing different types of interviews to best assess candidate fit and capability. We conduct phone interviews, in-person interviews, and Zoom (video) interviews, each serving specific purposes at various stages of the hiring process.

Phone Interviews: Often used as a preliminary screening tool, phone interviews allow us to quickly gauge a candidate's interest, qualifications, and communication skills. This step helps us determine if it's beneficial to proceed with more in-depth discussions.

In-Person Interviews: Ideal for final round assessments, in-person interviews provide a comprehensive understanding of the candidate’s interpersonal skills, professionalism, and how they might integrate with the team. These are typically conducted once a candidate has successfully passed the initial screening stages.

Zoom Interviews: Useful for remote candidates or initial to mid-level screening when in-person interaction isn't feasible. Zoom interviews are particularly valuable for assessing a candidate's demeanor and engagement through a digital medium, offering flexibility without sacrificing the depth of the conversation.

Each type of interview is strategically selected based on the role, candidate location, and the current stage of the hiring process, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in our recruitment efforts.

Best Practices

Conducting effective and fair interviews is essential for ensuring that all candidates have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities and fit for the position at our company. Here are some best practices that our interviewers follow to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of the interview process:

1. Structured Format: Use a consistent set of questions for all candidates applying for the same role. This standardization helps in fair comparison and minimizes biases.
2. Preparation: Interviewers should thoroughly review the candidate’s resume and the job description beforehand to ask relevant and targeted questions. Preparation also involves setting a clear agenda for the interview to manage time efficiently.
3. Active Listening: Pay close attention to the candidate's answers without interrupting. This not only shows respect but also ensures you fully understand their responses and experiences.
4. Avoid Leading Questions: Frame questions in a way that they do not suggest a specific answer. This encourages candidates to provide genuine and uninfluenced responses.
5. Note-taking: Keep detailed notes during the interview to help remember specific discussions and to use them in post-interview evaluations. This practice supports objective decision-making based on the information gathered.
6. Bias Awareness: Continually engage in training and discussions about unconscious biases. Recognizing personal biases and actively working to mitigate them is crucial for fairness.
7. Feedback: Provide timely and constructive feedback to candidates, regardless of the outcome. This not only enhances the candidate's experience but also upholds the company’s reputation as a fair employer.

By adhering to these best practices, interviewers at [Company Name] ensure that each candidate is evaluated based on merit and suitability for the role, thereby upholding our commitment to diversity and inclusion in the hiring process.

Note-taking and Evaluation

Effective note-taking and evaluation methods are integral to our interview process, ensuring that we capture essential information and make informed decisions about candidates. Interviewers are trained to jot down key points and impressions while actively listening to the candidate's responses. This practice involves summarizing answers to behavioral and technical questions, noting examples provided by the candidate, and recording observations about soft skills and cultural fit.

To standardize the evaluation, we use a scoring rubric aligned with the job requirements. Each response is rated based on predefined criteria, helping to maintain objectivity and reduce personal biases. After the interview, these notes are reviewed and discussed among the hiring team to ensure a comprehensive analysis of the candidate’s performance. This collaborative review process helps in achieving a consensus, ensuring that all perspectives are considered before making a hiring decision. Such structured note-taking and evaluation practices enable a fair, transparent, and effective selection process at our company.

The Hiring Project

To get a hands-on evaluation on the hard skills required for the role, we ask candidates to complete a hiring project. Doing a project, presentation, or working session showcases relevant experience while also giving the candidate a feel for the work they'd be doing. (Hiring is a two-way street — it needs to be just as much a fit for them as it is for us!)

Here are the types of projects we ask for:

• Strategic ask: Here's a hypothetical problem, come up with a few solutions.
• Creative projects: Have them design something in accordance to our brand and the duties of their prospective role.
• Live working sessions: Have them step into a meeting and brainstorm/create ideas (Note: This is not free work. More on considerations below.)
• Technical evaluations: For engineers or technical roles, this can be a live coding session or a coding project. There are a lot of learning solutions out there, so we don't have to design this!
• Review of past work: This can be a portfolio review or something they've already built in the past.

Things to consider:

• Be careful asking candidates to do too much of a heavy lift. Oftentimes, candidates have full time jobs and other commitments. Job searching can take a lot of time and effort, so we recommend project preparation time to be about two hours — and no more than ~4 hours!
• Compensation: Depending on the time commitment and how strategic the project is, there might be scenarios where it's in our best interest to compensate for the work candidates present. If it's something creative or ideas that could perhaps be used by your company, think of their effort almost like consulting work. A $50 payment for a project can go a long way. Candidate work is not free labor.
• Because of the point above, we'd recommend sticking with more hypothetical problems, problems we’ve already solved, or ones we don't need to solve.
• Candidates have limited knowledge of our organization, so do not expect perfection. Oftentimes, we expect project outcomes that we'd want from current employees — ones who have vast amounts of context and historical company data. Candidates have only really gotten a peek into how our company works, so please consider this along the way.

Here’s how we frame the hiring project to candidates:

• “Show us what you’ve got - AKA complete a project similar to what you’d actually be doing in the role. We love that you can talk the talk, but we want to see that you can also walk the walk. So, this is your chance to prove why you’re the right person for the role.”
• “This is a great opportunity to let your skills shine while also giving you a feel for the role.”

Candidate Evaluation

Criteria for Assessing Candidates

When assessing candidates, we utilize a comprehensive set of criteria designed to objectively evaluate each applicant's suitability for the role and fit within our company culture. Here’s a basic framework of criteria we use:

1. Skills and Competencies:
   • Technical proficiency relevant to the job.
   • Problem-solving and analytical skills.
   • Adaptability and learning agility.
   • Project management and organizational abilities.
2. Experience and Qualifications:
   • Relevant work history and job-specific experiences.
   • Educational background and certifications.
   • Achievement in previous roles (e.g., awards, recognitions).
3. Interpersonal Skills:
   • Communication effectiveness.
   • Team collaboration and ability to work with diverse teams.
   • Leadership potential and management skills, if applicable.
4. Cultural Fit:
   • Alignment with company values and mission.
   • Motivation for joining the company.
   • Potential to contribute to and enhance the company culture.
5. Potential for Growth:
   • Willingness to take on challenges.
   • Interest in continuous learning and development.
   • Capacity to assume increased responsibilities over time.

Each candidate is evaluated against these criteria through a scoring system that provides a quantitative measure of their fit for the role. This approach ensures a fair, consistent, and holistic assessment process, enabling us to select candidates who not only have the right skills but also complement and enhance our dynamic team.

Scoring Rubric

This rubric not only aids in making a balanced and informed hiring decision but also helps maintain consistency across various interviews and interviewers, thereby enhancing the fairness and credibility of the recruitment process.

Scoring Guide:

• 1 - Poor: Does not meet expectations; significant improvement needed.
• 2 - Fair: Slightly below expectations; some improvement needed.
• 3 - Good: Meets expectations; competent but not exceptional.
• 4 - Very Good: Exceeds expectations; very competent and shows potential for more.
• 5 - Excellent: Far exceeds expectations; exceptional performance and strong potential for advancement.

Instructions for Interviewers:

• Each interviewer should independently rate the candidate on each criterion immediately following the interview to ensure accuracy and prevent bias.
• Comments and specific examples should be noted to justify scores and provide context during the review discussion.
• The final candidate score is typically calculated by averaging the scores across all criteria and interviewers involved in the process.

Post-interview Procedure

Collective Decision-making Process about Next Steps

After completing the interview process, a systematic post-interview phase begins, aimed at making a collective and well-informed hiring decision. This phase involves several key steps:

1. Debriefing Session: Soon after the interviews, all interviewers convene for a debriefing session. Here, each interviewer presents their notes and scores for each candidate. They discuss their impressions, the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, and any pertinent observations noted during the interviews.
2. Consensus Building: The team works towards a consensus on each candidate’s suitability for the role. This involves comparing scores from the scoring rubric and discussing any discrepancies in assessments. The aim is to ensure a balanced view that incorporates diverse perspectives from all interviewers.
3. Decision Making: Once a consensus is reached, the hiring manager, along with HR, decides whether to extend a job offer, consider the candidate for a different role, or not move forward with the hire. This decision is based on the aggregate evaluation and the alignment of the candidate’s skills and values with the company’s needs.
4. Feedback and Follow-Up: Regardless of the decision, feedback is prepared and communicated to each candidate. This feedback is constructive and aims to provide insights that candidates can use to improve professionally.

This collective decision-making process ensures that each hiring decision is fair, inclusive, and reflective of our comprehensive evaluation standards.

Conclusion

Have Questions?

In conclusion, the structured approach to the hiring interview process at our company ensures a thorough and equitable assessment of each candidate, aligning with our commitment to diversity and inclusion. By meticulously following each step — from preparation and interviewing to evaluation and decision-making — we uphold the integrity and effectiveness of our recruitment efforts. 

If you have any questions about this interview process or need further clarification on any aspect, please reach out to the head of HR.