There are exactly 10 minutes left before the candidate in front of you has to run off to catch his train when you still need to have the time to discuss their past experience or salary demands. It smells like a botched interview!
In the search for the best talent, the job interview stage can sometimes be a balancing act. The challenge is to get a global view of the profile while quickly identifying the key information for the position. The structured interview is an excellent ally to help you conduct this exercise more efficiently and objectively!
What is a structured interview?
First, let's look at what a structured interview is in recruitment. It is a rigorous candidate assessment process that uses a list of pre-prepared questions to assess the skills and qualifications of candidates. Compared to a traditional interview, where questions can vary considerably from one candidate to another, the structured interview allows for a consistent assessment of candidates.
Here are 5 good reasons to use it in recruitment:
1. Reduce the risk of errors by 30%. Yes, you read that right! According to several studies, a structured interview allows you to reduce errors by 30% and better anticipate your candidates' future performance by up to 50%. These are essential arguments when you know that today, on average, 1 out of 2 recruitments is a failure after 18 months. This is a significant issue, as the consequences of a bad recruitment can be heightened for a company in terms of lost time, training, productivity, replacement costs, etc. Therefore, simply using this method can directly impact the performance and motivation of your teams.
2. Gain peace of mind: a better prepared and organised process. Efficiency and relevance are the keywords of the approach. You will obtain clear and easily comparable answers by carefully preparing an evaluation grid with questions on specific criteria. When there is a structure to the interview process, there will no longer be lengthy interviews that end in indecipherable notes. You can easily review all the key competencies and skills for the job and make more objective decisions. A study of interviewing behaviours shows that structured interviewing could improve the validity of hiring decisions by 25%.
3. Reduce bias in recruitment by 15% to provide a more objective approach. Pressure, prejudice, a bad environment, and many other factors can cloud your objectivity in your daily work, especially when it comes to making recruitment choices. The structured interview is your ally if you want to develop a fair process with impeccable ethics! According to a recent study, by assessing all candidates on the same basis and using the same grid, the structured interview reduces bias by 15%.
4. Give candidates the opportunity to show their best. Candidates should not be left with unpleasant surprises that necessitate prolonged silences or digressions. By knowing in advance how the interview will go, candidates know what to expect and can present their skills and motivations in a more structured, clear and concise manner. In addition, by evaluating candidates according to the same criteria, you can make a fairer comparison between several qualified candidates.
5. Optimise your time by reducing the time spent on recruitment by 25%! While this may seem time-consuming initially, it saves you time in the long run. Once you have prepared your questions and your analysis grid according to precise criteria, all you have to do is reproduce the model during the interviews! You go straight to the point and look for the information that interests you. You will conduct more effective and relevant interviews than if you let yourself be guided by the moment's inspiration. You will gain efficiency by reducing the time spent meeting candidates and having clear and objective comparison indicators for each candidate. The Schmidt and Hunter study has shown that structured interviews can reduce the time spent on recruitment by 25%.
As you can see, a structured interview is one of the most reliable methods for improving the objectivity of your recruitment choices. Deferred video interview solutions are proving to be very effective in facilitating the preparation of this type of interview. This is the case with the Smart Interview solution proposed by Central Test. The principle is simple: you prepare the questions related to the position concerned in advance in the format of your choice (video, audio, text), and you give your candidates the possibility of answering in one of these three formats—no more arbitrary sorting of CVs based on unverifiable assumptions.
To conclude, structured interviews alone are insufficient to make a recruitment decision. They must be combined with other assessment methods, such as psychometric tests, reference checks and role plays, to obtain a 360° view of a candidate's potential.
