Scoring candidates

We recommend you create a scoring criteria for each question beforehand and ask each candidate the same questions to compare like-for-like.

However when we get to deciding on the best candidate, we don't recommend that you simply base this decision off of the highest scores as there will be all sorts of bias that will make one person score in a different way to another. Plus your mood or context may also affect how you score from one day to the next. Instead you should view your scores as a quick way of remembering how you felt about one answer in comparison to the other, and of spotting the patterns in how each hiring panel member judged the candidates attributes and experiences.

When creating the scoring criteria you should work with the hiring panel to decide:

• Is there a section you already know you want to weight as more important? (E.g. is their task more important than their answers? Are questions focussed on specific competencies more important than others?)
• What type of answers might you give the lowest or highest score to?
• How are you going to incorporate diversity of thought into your scoring criteria? (E.g. can you have a score specifically associated with entirely different perspectives that challenge you as the hiring manager? )

Diverging from the script

It's absolutely okay to ask follow up questions to your original question, or to explore something in more detail with one candidate that might be relevant to them and their skills and not others. The interview script and scoring is there to ensure there is a fair baseline and that you as a hiring panel are being conscious about why you think one person is a better fit than the other.

However when interviewers first start using scripts and scoring they can find themselves behaving rigidly and missing out on important opportunities to learn about the candidate and build a relationship.

If you diverge from the plan simply ensure you do three things:

1. Write down the additional questions you ask just so when you review you know whether you gave someone more space than others to talk about specific aspects that you are comparing them on
2. As you ask them think about what context might be useful to the interviewee to help them feel safe to explore the question with you (e.g. I'm really interested in X because of X. OR I'd like to hear more about your specific role on this project so that we can see the personal contributions you bring to this type of work. )
3. It's okay to push people a little bit to explore further if you don't quite get the answer you were hoping for, but don't keep asking the same questions over and over as this will potentially cause anxiety or make them feel like they are being judged/ have messed up.