A Great Interview Doesn’t Always Mean A Great Hire
A Great Interview Doesn’t Always Mean A Great Hire
Some people are really good at interviews.
They’re confident. They have polished answers. The conversation flows easily. You leave thinking, “This is the one.”
But being good at an interview and being good at the job they’re interviewing for are not always the same thing.
The opposite can happen too. A strong candidate may be nervous, take longer to answer, or simply be less comfortable talking about themselves.
The challenge is separating what felt good in the interview from what actually tells you the person can do the job.
DECIDE WHAT COUNTS AS EVIDENCE
Before the first interview, identify three to five things someone truly needs to succeed in the role you’re interviewing for, but challenge yourself to go one step further than just that.
Ask yourself:
What would convince me that a candidate can actually do each one?
If the job requires someone to handle competing priorities, maybe you want to hear a specific example of how they managed several deadlines.
If problem-solving matters, you might ask them to walk you through a problem they had to figure out without much direction.
If customer service matters, you might want an example of how they handled an unhappy customer.
Now you’re not just interviewing for a list of qualities. You’ve decided what evidence you’re looking for before a candidate even walks through the door.
ASK QUESTIONS THAT ARE HARDER TO REHEARSE
Consider these two questions:
- “Are you good at dealing with difficult customers?”
- “Tell me about a difficult customer situation you handled. What did you do?”
The first question is easy to answer correctly. The second gives you something to evaluate.
But even common interview questions can produce rehearsed answers. That is where follow-up questions become useful. Some strong follow-up questions could be:
- What did you personally do?
- Why did you choose that approach?
- What happened next?
- Would you handle anything differently now?
You’re not trying to catch the candidate off guard. You’re trying to understand what’s behind their answers.
DO NOT GIVE EVERY INTERVIEW DETAIL THE SAME WEIGHT
A candidate can be:
• Easy to talk to
• Confident
• Experienced
• Enthusiastic
• Well prepared
But none of those are automatic proof that the person can succeed in a specific role.
After an interview, separate your notes into two simple groups:
- What I observed – “I really liked talking to her” is an observation.
- What the candidate demonstrated – “She gave two examples of calming upset customers and explained exactly what she did” is evidence related to the job.
Both may influence your impression. Only one tells you something specific about the skill you were trying to evaluate.
GIVE CANDIDATES THE SAME CHANCE TO SHOW YOU
Interviews will naturally take different directions. While you don’t need to follow a script word for word, every candidate should have the chance to answer the same core questions about the skills that matter most for the job.
Otherwise, one candidate may spend 20 minutes talking about relevant experience while another interview drifts into an easy conversation about shared interests, and when it’s time to make a decision, you’re left comparing candidates based on completely different information.
A short list of consistent questions gives you a better comparison while still leaving room for follow-up questions and natural conversation.
WRITE DOWN YOUR OPINION BEFORE THE GROUP TALKS
If several people interview a candidate, ask each interviewer to record their thoughts before discussing them as a group.
Why?
Imagine the first person says:
“I thought she was fantastic.”
The next person may start looking at their own interview through that lens.
The same thing can happen when the first reaction is negative.
Writing down individual observations first gives you a record of what each interviewer actually thought before hearing everyone else’s opinion.
Then compare notes.
You may find that several interviewers noticed the same strength. You may also find that one person heard an important example that others missed.
CHANGE THE FINAL QUESTION
When it is time to make a hiring decision, there is one question worth changing.
Instead of:
“Who did we like best?”
Ask:
“Which candidate gave us the strongest evidence that they can succeed in this job?”
That doesn’t mean personality, communication style, or experience stop mattering. It does mean you’re asking for actual evidence instead of letting a good conversation make the decision for you.
Hiring will never be a perfect science. Interviews can’t tell you everything about how someone will perform once they start working, but a strong interview process can help make sure your decision is based on more than who happened to interview best.
A great interview can leave a strong impression. A great hiring process gives you something stronger to base your decision on.
