A guide to structured interviewing for better hiring practices

Introduction 

Structured interviewing means using the uniform methods to assess candidates applying for the same job, and can work for organizations of any size. Google uses structured interviewing, and we use the same interview questions, grade candidate responses on an identical scale, and make hiring decisions based on consistent, predetermined qualifications.

One deterrent for organizations is that structured interview rubrics are hard to develop. You have to write and test them, and then make sure interviewers stick to them. Plus, you have to constantly refresh questions so candidates don’t compare notes. There’s also the notion that interviewers think they’re good at interviewing, which curbs any desire to create and follow structured interview practices.

When it comes to hiring, though, trusting your gut won’t cut it. Research shows that during first encounters we make snap, unconscious judgments heavily influenced by our existing unconscious biases and beliefs. For example, in an interview context, we shift from assessing the complexities of a candidate’s competencies to hunting for evidence that confirms our initial impression, without even realizing it. Psychologists call this confirmation bias.

Google's hiring team has also found that structured interviews cause both candidates and interviewers to have a better experience and are perceived to be more fair based on feedback surveys and user studies.

Google’s approach to structured interviewing consists of four aspects:

1. Using vetted, high-quality questions that are relevant to the role 
2. Recording comprehensive feedback of candidate answers so evaluators can easily review responses
3. Scoring with standardized rubrics so that all reviewers have a shared understanding of what  outstanding, solid,  borderline, and poor response looks like
4. Providing interviewer training and calibration so that interviewers are confident and consistent in their assessments

Learn the external research

The benefits of structured interviewing, including increased predictive validity and reduced adverse impact, have been well documented by academic research over the last 20 years.

• Structured interviews result in increased predictive validity and decreased differences between demographic groups.
• Structured assessment tools (what the researchers call “behaviorally-anchored rating scales,” and what Google calls “rubrics”) are more predictive than unstructured interviews.

Well-trained interviewers ask a set of planned, rigorous, and relevant interview questions and use a scoring guide to make sure their ratings are accurate.

Dr. Melissa Harrell, a former hiring effectiveness expert on the Google People Analytics team, noted, "Structured interviews are one of the best tools we have to identify the strongest job candidates.” “Not only that, they avoid the pitfalls of some of the other common methods,” she added.

Read Google’s internal research

Given the strong academic research on the topic, Google's hiring team decided to experiment with a structured interviewing approach, starting with select groups. The outcomes were very positive and the team has expanded the approach since then with interview questions and rubrics for a variety of roles, and interviewer training.

Here are some of the takeaways:

• Structured interviews are better at indicating who will do well on the job: Results show that structured interviews are more predictive of job performance than unstructured interviews when comparing interview scores to the performance scores of those hires across functions and levels.
• Interviewers are happier and saving time: Using pre-made, high-quality questions, guides, and rubrics saves on average 40 minutes per interview. Googlers conducting structured interviews reported that they felt more prepared when interviewing the candidate.
• Structured interviews make candidates happier: The team saw an uptick in candidate satisfaction in feedback scores for structured interview candidates. Interestingly, scores indicated an especially big difference in candidate satisfaction rates when comparing rejected candidates. Rejected candidates who had a structured interview were 35% happier than those who did not have a structured interview.

Define hiring attributes

To implement structured interviewing, you must first define the specific attributes required for success in the role. Instead of relying on "gut feel" or vague cultural fits, we recommend focusing on tangible focus areas. Here are three categories we find helpful. These categories allow interviewers to assess both technical competence and cognitive potential consistently across all candidates.

1. Role-related knowledge (RRK)

The goal: To measure whether the candidate has the specific skills and industry expertise necessary for the role.

• What to look for: Does the candidate have the functional or technical “know-how” required? Can they speak to the nuances of their specific field based on past experiences?
• Assessment tip: Use Behavioral questions ("Tell me about a time...") to validate their resume claims and understand how they have applied their knowledge in real-world scenarios.

2. Problem solving

The goal: To evaluate how a candidate strategically thinks through complex scenarios and uses critical thinking to reach a solution.

• What to look for: How does the candidate process information? Can they break down a problem into its component parts and propose a logical, data-driven solution?
• Assessment tip: Use Hypothetical questions ("Imagine if...") to see how they handle new, ambiguous challenges they haven't encountered before.
  

3. Leadership

The goal: To assess leadership qualities and potential, with different expectations based on the level of the role.

• For individual contributors: Look for "emergent leadership" — the ability to take initiative, work collaboratively across teams, and a consistent drive for self-development.
• For people managers: Look for the ability to empower a team, shape a long-term vision or strategy, and a commitment to developing direct reports.
• Assessment tip: Look for evidence of how the candidate gets things done and how they navigate group dynamics to achieve a goal.

Draft your interview questions

Effective interview questions help with assessing candidates. Google's interview questions often contain an initial prompt, along with several follow-ups designed to understand the candidate's thought processes. The goal is to make the questions complex enough that candidates can't solve it by drawing on job experience alone.

Parts of an interview question:

• The initial prompt: This sentence is clear, concise, and phrased in a way that encourages candidates to explain their process and offer a solution. The scenario is usually a situation that could be realistically encountered on the job but does not require technical or job-specific skills to respond.
• Predetermined Follow-up questions are predetermined: They help elicit a high level of detail from the candidate by encouraging them to thoroughly describe and explain their approach to solving the problem. Refer to your required attributes list to help you identify the ones that the initial prompt does not cover and then design your follow-up questions to address those areas.

Interviewers may not be looking to assess a correct answer, but instead want to judge the analytical thought process used to explore, define, and offer a solution to the problem.

Understand behavioral vs. hypothetical questions

There are two kinds of structured interview questions: behavioral and hypothetical. Behavioral questions ask candidates to describe prior achievements and match those to what is required in the current job (such as, “Tell me about a time…?”). Hypothetical questions present a job-related hypothetical situation (for instance, “What would you do if…?”).

This is what some of these interview questions can sound like:

• Behavioral: Tell me about a time your behavior had a positive impact on your team. (Follow-ups: What was your primary goal and why? How did your teammates respond? Moving forward, what’s your plan?)
• Hypothetical: Imagine you're working on an email product and a competitor starts charging a $5 monthly fee for their product. How would you assess the situation and what recommendation would you make to your team? (Follow-ups: What factors would you take into consideration when making your recommendation? What are the pros and the cons of your recommendation? How would you assess if this was a sustainable model moving forward? What impact would this have on the organization as a whole?).

Use behavioral questions to test how a candidate responded to a past situation and hypothetical questions to assess a response to a future situation. Behavioral questions are good at revealing patterns of behavior and hypothetical questions allow you to see how a candidate would respond to novel situations.

Use a rubric

For structured interview questions, creating rubrics can help assess answers from multiple candidates to consistently compare applicant responses.

Google often documents with illustrative examples what a poor, borderline, solid, and outstanding answer would cover for attributes the questions are each designed to test. Additionally, it’s encouraged that interviewers take detailed notes of applicant responses, so they can later be reviewed throughout the hiring process.