Structured Interviews

Structure means the questions are fixed, the order is fixed, and the answers are scored against agreed criteria. That is the whole of it, and it predicts substantially better than the alternative.

Once the criteria described in “Structured Interviews” are fixed, the practical challenge is running them consistently across assessors. A coordinator can use this operations reference to plan review time, compare the effort spent at each stage and spot avoidable delays, without confusing administrative efficiency with the quality of the evidence collected from candidates.

For an independent benchmark, compare the process with CIPD selection methods guidance; the useful test is whether the local method remains job-related, proportionate and explainable.

What structure changes

Candidates become comparable, because they answered the same things.

Assessor variance drops, because the criteria constrain judgement.

The interview stops measuring rapport, which is what an unstructured conversation largely measures.

And the decision becomes explainable, which matters if it is ever challenged.

The two question types that work

Behavioural: tell me about a time you did X. What was the situation, what did you do, what happened.

Situational: here is a situation you would face in this role. What would you do, and why.

Behavioural questions draw on what somebody has done; situational questions work for candidates without directly relevant history.

Both come out of the job analysis, specifically from the critical incidents.

Writing them

Five to eight questions for a substantial interview.

Each tied to one requirement from the job analysis.

Each with prompts written down, so that follow-up is consistent rather than improvised.

And each with a scoring guide: what a strong answer contains, what a weak one looks like.

An afternoon of work, reusable for every round.

Running it

Same questions, same order, for every candidate.

Take notes on what was said rather than on your impression of it.

Score immediately after, before discussing with anybody else, because the first opinion voiced anchors the room.

And leave time for candidate questions, which is not assessment and is part of them deciding about you.

What to avoid

Improvised follow-ups that go somewhere for one candidate and not another.

Questions about personal circumstances, which are both irrelevant and a legal risk.

Brain teasers, which have no demonstrated relationship with performance and irritate candidates.

And the closing "do you have any concerns about the role", which invites candidates to raise doubts and is scored against them.

The resistance you will meet

Experienced interviewers frequently dislike structure, because it constrains a skill they believe they have.

The evidence that unstructured interviewing predicts weakly is strong, and the confidence of the interviewer is unrelated to the accuracy.

The argument that works is usually not about validity but about defensibility and consistency, which managers accept more readily.

What to check

Does every candidate get the same questions?

Is each question tied to a stated requirement?

Are scores recorded before the panel discusses?

And has anybody compared how two interviewers scored the same answer?

The point

Structure means the same questions, the same order, scored against written criteria.

That is the whole of it, and it predicts substantially better than conversation.

Underlying all of this

Almost everything in this collection reduces to one discipline: write down what the job requires, assess that thing directly, record the evidence, and look at your own outcomes afterwards. None of it requires buying anything, and organisations that do those four things consistently outperform ones running longer processes built from instruments chosen before the requirements were known.

The recurring pattern

The recurring failure across every section here is the same: measuring what is convenient rather than what matters, then never checking whether it predicted anything. The check is an afternoon of work once a year, and it is the step that separates a process that improves from one that merely persists.