How to Conduct a Job Interview as an Employer

By Don Georgevich

Phase Three of the Scientific Hiring Method: Discovery

A good job interview is not a conversation that happens to go well. It is a planned attempt to gather evidence about the work.

Most employers know they should prepare for an interview, but preparation often means reading the résumé five minutes before the candidate arrives and deciding who will ask which question.

That is not enough. By the time the interview begins, the team should already know what it must learn, which questions will reveal it, how answers will be scored, and what information the candidate needs in order to make an informed decision of their own.

Decide what this interview must prove

Every interview should have a defined job. It may need to test process judgment, customer communication, technical depth, leadership, planning, or another capability that matters to the role.

Begin with the Job Scorecard and Hiring Criteria. Choose only the outcomes and capabilities this interview is responsible for examining. Do not try to cover the entire role in every conversation.

OPM recommends selecting structured-interview content from critical tasks and competencies identified through job analysis, with particular attention to capabilities needed when the person enters the role. See OPM’s guidance on selecting interview competencies.

Build the interview before candidates arrive

Write the central questions, follow-up probes, scoring anchors, and interviewer responsibilities before the first interview.

The same central questions should be used for candidates being compared for the same role. That does not make every conversation identical. Candidate answers will differ, and interviewers will need relevant follow-up questions. The standard should remain stable even when the path to complete evidence changes.

Use Structured Interview Questions to build the question set and the Interview Rubric to define what weak, acceptable, and strong evidence look like.

Prepare the interviewers

Each interviewer should understand the role, the purpose of the questions, the evidence required, and the limits of their responsibility.

Assign ownership. One person may examine process diagnosis, another influence, and another practical judgment. When everyone asks whatever comes to mind, candidates receive different interviews and important areas may be repeated or ignored.

Review questions that should not be asked. The EEOC advises that pre-employment inquiries should be limited to information essential for determining whether a person is qualified for the job. Pre-offer disability questions are restricted, and inquiries that reveal protected personal information should generally be avoided unless justified by a lawful business purpose. See the EEOC’s Prohibited Employment Policies and Practices.

Create a realistic interview plan

A sixty-minute interview might follow this sequence:

1. Minutes 0–5: Welcome the candidate, explain the interview structure, and introduce the people in the room.
2. Minutes 5–10: Explain why the role exists, what success looks like, and what this interview will examine.
3. Minutes 10–45: Ask the predetermined questions and use job-related probes to complete the evidence.
4. Minutes 45–55: Give the candidate time to ask substantive questions about the work, manager, team, and company.
5. Minutes 55–60: Explain the next step and the expected decision timeline.

The exact timing will vary. The plan matters because it protects the evidence-gathering portion of the interview and prevents the candidate’s questions from being squeezed into the final minute.

Open the interview with clarity

A useful opening might sound like this:

“We have sixty minutes. I will begin with a short explanation of the role and then we will ask the same central questions we use with every candidate. We may ask follow-up questions to understand your specific examples. We will leave about ten minutes for your questions and explain the next step before we finish.”

The candidate knows what to expect and does not have to guess whether the interview is going off track.

Explain the real work before testing motivation

Do not ask why someone wants the job before giving them enough information to understand it.

Explain the business situation, the outcomes, the reporting relationship, the authority, the resources, and the constraints. A realistic description helps the candidate decide whether the opportunity deserves continued interest.

OPM describes a realistic job preview as information about both desirable and undesirable aspects of a job and recommends consistent communication across candidates. See OPM’s Realistic Job Previews guidance.

Ask one question at a time

Compound questions produce incomplete answers because the candidate chooses one part and forgets the rest.

Weak: “Tell me about a difficult project, how you organized the team, what went wrong, and how you communicated with leadership.”

Better: “Tell me about the most difficult project you were responsible for delivering.”

After the candidate establishes the situation, ask focused probes about organization, decisions, resistance, communication, and results.

Use silence before rescuing the candidate

Candidates may need a moment to choose an example. Do not immediately rephrase the question, suggest an answer, or move to something easier.

A brief silence is not evidence of weakness. Some people think before they speak. The purpose is to gather a complete answer, not reward the person who fills every second with confident language.

Probe for personal contribution

Strong candidates often work through teams, so “we” is not automatically a problem. The interviewer still needs to understand what the candidate personally noticed, decided, did, and influenced.

Useful probes include:

“What part did you own?”

“Which decision was yours?”

“Who disagreed?”

“What did you do after the first attempt failed?”

“How was the result measured?”

“What would your manager say you contributed?”

The question bank at Structured Interview Questions shows how to connect these probes to job-related competencies.

Take notes without losing the conversation

Record facts, actions, results, and meaningful quotes. Do not attempt to transcribe every sentence.

Separate observation from interpretation.

Observation: “Candidate said the vice president required the managers to adopt the process after a two-week pilot.”

Interpretation: “Influence may have depended on executive authority.”

The interpretation can be tested with another question. When notes contain only labels such as “strong leader” or “not strategic,” the team cannot tell what produced the judgment.

Do not score the candidate while they are still answering

Listen for the complete example before deciding what it means. A weak opening may become strong after relevant probing. A polished opening may collapse when the interviewer asks for ownership and measurement.

Record the evidence, complete the question, and score against the written anchor after the response is finished.

Give candidates an equal opportunity to provide evidence

OPM explains that structured interviews improve consistency by asking predetermined questions in the same order and evaluating responses with the same rating scale. See OPM’s Structured Interviews guidance.

Do not give a favored candidate hints, extra examples, easier wording, or additional time without a job-related reason. Reasonable accommodation may be required, and accommodations should allow the assessment to measure the intended capability rather than an unrelated barrier.

Let the candidate interview the company

The candidate’s questions should not be treated as a test of cleverness. They are trying to understand the decision they may be asked to make.

Answer honestly about the manager, team, resources, expectations, problems, pace, flexibility, and company condition. When an answer is not yet known, say so.

A good process should help unsuitable candidates withdraw before either side makes a costly mistake.

Close without creating false confidence

Do not tell a candidate they are the leading choice or imply an offer is likely before the evidence has been reviewed.

Explain what remains, who will make the decision, and when the candidate should expect communication.

A clear close might sound like this:

“We are completing interviews through Thursday. Each interviewer will score the evidence independently before we compare candidates. We expect to contact you by Monday with the next step.”

Score independently before discussing the candidate

Each interviewer should complete the Interview Scorecard before hearing other opinions.

Independent ratings protect useful disagreement. When the hiring manager announces, “I loved this person,” before anyone records a score, the later discussion becomes an attempt to agree with or oppose the manager rather than understand the evidence.

Debrief by outcome, not by overall impression

Review one criterion at a time. Ask what the candidate proved, which evidence supports the rating, what remains uncertain, and where interviewers heard conflicting information.

Do not begin with, “So, what did everyone think?” That question invites personality judgments before the team examines the work.

The next stage should address unresolved evidence. A Candidate Test Drive may reveal how the candidate handles a realistic task, while Reference Checking may confirm or challenge a claimed pattern.

The interview should make the next decision easier

A completed interview should leave the team with specific evidence, independent ratings, open questions, and a clear reason to advance, hold, or reject the candidate.

It should not leave the team arguing about chemistry, confidence, or who seemed most like the people already in the company.

Use Structured Interviews for the complete assessment method, Structured Interview Questions to build the question set, and Discover What a Candidate Can Really Do for the full Phase Three path.

Legal and fairness note: Interview questions, accommodations, ratings, and decisions should be job-related and applied consistently. Federal, state, and local requirements may differ. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

See the Scientific Hiring Method.

Related Phase Three resources: Interview Questions to Ask Candidates.