Reading — Why the Best Interviewers Ask the Same Questions

Hiring

Why the Best Interviewers Ask the Same Questions

Great hiring is not about clever tricks or gut instinct. It is about asking better questions — and asking them the same way every time.

Adapted from Google re:Work

Imagine two interviews for the same job. In the first, the manager chats with the candidate about football, asks whatever comes to mind, and decides within five minutes that they like this person. In the second, the interviewer follows a plan: the same questions for every applicant, a clear scoring guide, and notes taken throughout. Which interview do you think predicts real job performance better?

The research is clear: the second one, by far. Unstructured interviews invite gut feeling and confirmation bias — once we form a first impression, we spend the rest of the meeting looking for evidence to confirm it. We stop listening and start confirming. Structured interviews are designed to interrupt that habit.

What does a structured interview look like?

Google’s re:Work team recommends building interviews on four elements. First, use vetted, role-related questions — not puzzles or small talk. Second, record detailed feedback while it is fresh. Third, score every answer against a written rubric that describes what a poor, average and outstanding response looks like. Fourth, train interviewers before letting them interview.

It helps to know which type of question you are asking. Behavioural questions look backwards: “Tell me about a time when you had to give difficult news to a colleague.” Hypothetical questions look forwards: “What would you do if a top performer suddenly wanted to resign?” Skilled interviewers avoid asking questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no, and they prepare follow-ups in advance: “Could you tell me why you chose that approach?”, “I’d like to know what you would do differently today.”

That last statistic deserves attention. Even people who did not get the job rated the experience more positively when the process felt fair and consistent. For an HR team, that means structured interviewing is not just a hiring tool — it is employer branding. Every candidate you interview will talk about your company afterwards; it is worth deciding what story you want them to tell.

“But doesn’t it kill the conversation?”

A common objection is that structure makes interviews robotic. In practice, the opposite tends to happen. Because the questions are prepared, the interviewer can stop worrying about what to ask next and concentrate on listening, probing and managing the time. Google found that using pre-made questions and rubrics saves interviewers around forty minutes per interview — time they can spend running background checks, comparing notes with colleagues, or simply getting back to their day job.

Structure also protects you legally. When every person on the shortlist answers the same questions and is scored on the same scale, it becomes much easier to explain — to a candidate, or to a court — why you hired one person and not another. A decision based on “I just liked her more” is a red flag in any hiring process.

None of this means abandoning warmth. Start by welcoming the candidate, explain how the interview will work, and leave time for their questions at the end. The structure is the skeleton; you still provide the human touch.