The structured job interview is a standardised way of interviewing a number of candite’s to reduce unconscious bias and to create a fair hiring process.
This article will help job applicants to gain higher interview scores by not falling into the subconscious trap of the structured job interview.
Structured job interview and time problems
Even though research shows how a structured job interview is currently the best way to predict job performance, the asking of pre-written questions ‘boxes’ in an applicant’s answer.
Behavioral and situational interview questions are designed to be specific to allow the interviewee to give a relevant example/answer. The specific direction given to the applicant traps the candidate into a box, where they can’t discuss other skills and experiences, they feel would add value to the role.
It is common for a career professional, post a job interview, to reflect on their answer and to feel annoyed because they didn’t mention a key skill or experience, they knew would have highlighted their unique selling point.
In an informal job interview, the hiring manager will allow the applicant to talk about what they feel is important. The openness of the informal interview can be detrimental to the outcome of the interview as the interviewee, without conscious awareness, can discuss irrelevant information.
The duration of the interview creates a second barrier. The hiring manager, asking on average 8 job interview questions over a 45-minute period, feels pressured to ask a question, record the candidates’ answers, before asking the next question on the pre-written list. This is true even when the hiring manager requires additional information – the employer knows the applicant hasn’t disclosed all of their skills, but on the other hand, the next interview should start in 10 minutes’ time.
The pressure comes from the hiring manager knowing that each additional question and answer can possibly overshoot the allocated time slot for each interview having a knock-on delay. This ‘time’ problem comes from many employers having a recruitment day of back-to-back interviews. A solution to this problem would be a one-interview per day recruitment process.
Trained job interviewers versus untrained hiring managers
How can a job applicant overcome the rigorous job interview questions and time pressure created within a structured job interview?
First, it is important to understand that not all job interviewers are the same. A key difference is between being interviewed by a trained or untrained interviewer. Some organisations insist on a candidate being interviewed by a trained interviewer, often an HR staff member or specialist recruiter.
A trained interviewer will have spent time selecting which essential job criteria the interview questions should relate to, and how the interview question should be worded (situational behavioral or strength-based interview question).
Trained interviewers are often more confident in the interview environment than a non-trained hiring manager. Confidence increases the number of follow-up questions asked during the recruitment process.
A non-trained interviewer, often the future employee’s line manager, is likely to use commonly asked job interview questions, rather than taking the time to ask competency-based questions.
Commonly asked questions are more generic:
- “What are your strengths?”
- “What can you bring to the team?”
- “Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?”
Competency-based questions are more specific, to drill down to a specific skill or experience:
- “How would you deal with a (problem/situation)?”
- “Give an example of when you (completed job duty)”
- “What is your understanding of (industry knowledge)?”
Follow-up questions can be asked by both trained and none-trained recruiters, but it is more likely that a confident and experienced trained hiring manager will ask for more detailed information, allowing the interviewee to state job-relevant information, and therefore score higher on the interview scorecard.
- “What specifically did you do?”
- “Why did you choose that option over another?”
- “What was the long-term outcome?”
It is the same experienced hiring manager who will ask follow-up questions when a job applicant unwittingly discusses a skill within the wrong context.
- “Do you have an example within a (job-related context) environment?”
- “Can you tell me about a team task when you took the lead rather than being part of the team?”
- “Have you worked on larger scale projects?”
Duration of an interview
High-skilled positions are often gained through being successful in a multi-stage job interview process. The theory is that being asked similar questions, relating to the job criteria, over 3-4 job interviews, ensures that the employer makes a hire with a realistic vision of the new employee’s potential job performance.
In a single interview, the job applicant might be viewed as skilled, but in reality, a single interview isn’t enough to confirm the candidate’s level of competencies for medium to high-skilled positions.
For most low-skilled job roles, employers will only have a single interview as ‘potential’ rather than experience, is a key decision in the hiring process.
The duration of the job interview doesn’t create pressure on the interviewee. The job applicant can give a long or short, detailed or vague, interview answer. In fact, most interviewees are unaware of the time during the job interview itself.
Research shows how the higher number of words per answer often relates to the number of job offers. This is because, on average, the more detailed the answer, the more likely it is that the answer references the criteria on the interview scorecard.
From the career professionals’ perspective, the delivery of a job-relevant detailed interview answer is a more important focus than the duration of their interview answer.
Overcoming the generic question problem
The real problem for a job applicant is knowing what detail to reference to the job interview answer, especially when asked a vague question.
First-choice applicants – career professionals who do exceptionally well in a job interview, have the confidence to ask for additional details before answering the question.
As an example, when asked: “Tell me about a time you worked successfully within a team?” The self-assured job candidate will clarify what experience the employer is attempting to uncover: “Would you like an example of when a led a team or when I was a team member?”
Asking for specific information ensures that the right example is used for each individual job interview question.
Importantly, each answer needs to reference the job criteria for each specific question. Employers use an interview scorecard that has the interview question and a list of criteria that are required to gain a high score. If the job criteria aren’t referenced during the interview answer, the hiring manager will have no choice but to allocate a lower score.
Interview preparation, prior to the job interview, must consist of identifying the job criteria, predicting job interview questions, and crafting high-scoring interview answers.
In the interview itself, when asked a competency-based interview question, it is important to quickly reflect on what criteria the hiring manager is wanting to hear. This self-reflection can help to identify which one of the prepared interview answers to use.
Even when a prepared interview answer has been chosen, the job applicant can cover all bets by giving a specifically detailed answer.
The delivery of a detailed answer is important. If an employer refuses to ask follow-up questions, to gain a better understanding of the candidate’s future job performance, the applicant is scored on the initiative, often limited interview answers.
It is true that a weak interviewer often makes the wrong hiring decision. Many organisations with a high turnover of staff don’t interview correctly. But the same poor interview technique can stop skilled employees gaining job offers.
Specific job interview answers
Essentially, a detailed job interview answer is an example (behavioral job interview answer) or future scenario (situational job interview answer) that is embedded with the answers to the hiring manager’s potential follow-up questions:
- “What specifically did you do?”
- “Why did you choose that option over another?”
- “What was the long-term outcome?”
The specific and detailed answer does have a longer duration, requiring the interviewee to mindful of speech speed, pauses, tonality, and to use emotional intelligence to ensure the interview panel is still engaged and listening.
For a behavioral interview question, the most famous structure to answer the question is STAR:
- Situation
- Task
- Action
- Result
When the additional detail has been embedded for the structure of the interview answer is increased:
- Situation
- Long-term outcome if the situation wasn’t resolved
- Options to overcome barriers, including pro’s and con’s of options
- Reason for choosing options
- Task
- Role within the task
- Risk assessments
- Stakeholder engagement
- Action – team actions vs own actions
- Additional/unforeseen problems and how these were overcome
- Highlighting personal motivation
- Result – short vs long term
As each interview question varies, the detailed structure can be amended as required. What is important to remember is that not all hiring managers will ask for a specific criterion when the job interview question is stated.
Nervous or less experienced recruiters ask fewer follow-up questions. A structured job interview cross-references answer against the interview scorecard (job criteria).
Many failed job interviews come down to detailed answers being given that don’t reference enough job-related competency.
