Why Structured Interviewing Reduces Bias

How effective is your interviewing plan? Is it consistent across candidates? Does it have a formal plan with strategies that address bias? Bias is everywhere, and most of the time, we’re not even aware of it. However, if you want to reduce bias, structured interviews have proven to be an excellent approach.

As companies strive to create bias-free hiring practices, it’s critical for stakeholders responsible for recruitment to consider how effective their current interview procedures are in limiting bias. While it may be impossible to eliminate it completely, with the right approach, your organization can make improvements. Learn all there is to know in this structured interview guide, and what technology tools are available to help you.

What Is a Structured Interview?

A structured interview sounds very much like what it is — an interview with structure. A standard structured interview definition is a conversation between a hiring manager and a candidate that involves a defined set of questions.

Because there is standardization in the questions, it creates a consistent, systematic process for interviewing and evaluating applicants. It also supports fair hiring practices.

An interviewer asks the same questions in the same order. In addition to the actual interview, there are other aspects of this process. These include a job analysis of the abilities, qualifications, and attributes most valuable to that position. This is often the foundation of building the questions.

The second piece of the structured interview process is scoring the responses. An interview scorecard can be essential in reducing bias in assessments, so that you’re focusing on the knowledge, skills, and position fit versus any other factors.

The Value of Structured Interviewing

The value of structured interviewing makes sense fiscally as well. Bad hires create turnover, which costs companies, on average, $17,000. Businesses don’t want to waste time and resources on someone who isn’t going to work out long-term.

Structured interviews deliver better results. Academic research suggests that adding structure to the interview process can enhance the reliability and predictive validity of evaluations.

If your company wants to be forward-thinking about removing bias from interviews, you’ll need to understand how it happens.

How Bias Appears in Interviews

Bias almost always emerges in conversations with others. Much of the time, you may be completely unaware of it. It’s human nature to gravitate toward those with similar perspectives and backgrounds. It’s comfortable.

When you interview someone who seems more different than alike, bias can creep in and be subconscious. Why does this happen? There’s a phenomenon called confirmation bias. It means that people tend to seek out something that “confirms” one’s beliefs or values.

During an interview, confirmation bias may immediately arise in someone’s perception of another. How this manifests is that the interviewer begins to look for information that supports their first impression of the applicant’s skills. The impression may be an unfair assessment based on physical looks, the university they attended, or previous employers.

Those are actually not very relevant to whether that person is a good fit for the position. They can cloud judgment. Candidates who would have been great employees could be dismissed, and bad candidates could be hired.

Is Bias Always Unconscious?

Bias may not always be unconscious. It can be more obvious if the interviewer has personal feelings toward a group that is unlike them. It could be something like wondering if an older applicant can “keep up” with a young team. Another example is a judgment against someone who is a working parent.

When bias becomes judgment, it can lead to bad hiring decisions. To mitigate this, structured interviewing offers a path, and there are specially designed technology tools that allow you to do this at scale.

Why Structured Interviews Reduce Bias

Harvard Business Review points to structured interviews as a key way to neutralize bias. In the article, they discuss their own frameworks for reducing unconscious bias by “focusing on the factors that have a direct impact on performance.”

In addition to standardizing questions, Harvard Business School also recommends work sample tests. Candidates are provided with the same problem to solve, allowing for an objective review of their skills.

Another interesting note about this interview strategy is that it can improve the candidate experience. That’s something that many companies struggle with, and it can actually keep them from landing the best applicants.

Informing potential hires that you’re using a structured framework for the interview and its benefits could put them at ease. It gives them an idea of what to expect, whereas unstructured interviewing may make them more anxious.

Let’s review key ways of how to reduce hiring bias through structured interviewing.

They Are Built on Fairness and Objectivity

Every person gets the opportunity to answer the same questions. It may seem simple, but consider all the different biases that could occur if each candidate had a completely unique set of questions.

You can eliminate much personal bias with this option. Overall, this fosters a hiring culture of transparency and equity.

How do you ensure fairness and objectivity? By empowering your team with easy-to-use tools to conduct a compliant interview. Our solutions include:

• The ability to upload pre-existing and vetted questions to our platform for hiring managers to use in assembling their questionnaire
• Keeping interviewers accountable with completion tracking and automated reminders in our applicant tracking system (ATS)
• Auditing hiring managers’ ratings from recorded interviews to ensure they are following standards and upholding criteria

Predefined Scoring Drives Decisions Based on Skill

Interview scorecards enable hiring managers to be objective in grading applicant answers. You’ll see more objective feedback versus unstructured interviewing. You can start with templates like those available on our platform. It saves time, especially if it’s a role you hire for frequently.

Streamlining Interviewing Supports Reducing Bias, Too

Adopting structured interviewing also makes the entire hiring cycle more efficient. Why does efficiency matter? Delays in setting up interviews because people aren’t prepared should no longer occur. It also decreases confusion for those interviewing and hiring about what the process is.

There’s also less small talk or irrelevant conversation, giving time back to your staff and applicants. It becomes a very controlled interaction, which can deter bias. A streamlined workflow becomes the standard when you use our ATS, video interview platform, and interview compliance features.

Best Practices for Bias-Free Interviews

The structured interview process has many interpretations. It’s not necessarily one-size-fits-all, as each industry and company is unique. However, there are many best practices you can adopt to ensure stronger bias-free hiring.

How Software Supports Bias Reduction

Now that you’ve learned all about bias and structured interviews, you may have concerns about how this would work practically and at scale. As with any process in your company, software has an answer.

Here are our tools that support structured interviews and reducing bias.

Final Thoughts on Structured Interviews and Bias

Can you eliminate bias in every candidate interview? It all comes down to human nature, which is hard to control. What you can do is create a process that aims to neutralize it so it doesn’t play such a significant role in hiring decisions.

Structured interviews provide a path to consistency across conversations. It’s one of the best ways to ensure people get the same opportunity. The more you can decrease bias, the more likely you are to hire smarter, which is good for companies and applicants. It’s a win-win when an experienced and well-qualified hire joins the team.

Learn more about structured interviewing and candidate assessments.