In-House vs Open Training Courses: Which is right for your organisation?
June 4, 2026
How to maintain positive communication as your business grows
July 10, 2026FURTHER EXPERTISE
How to be a more effective interviewer when hiring
Expert Opinion from Rich Watts published June 11, 2026
Hiring the right people is one of the most critical responsibilities for managers and leaders. The decisions made in interviews can have a long term impact on team performance, culture and morale. Yet many managers approach interviews without structured preparation or a clear framework, which increases the risk of bias, missed opportunities and poor hiring outcomes.
This article explores what effective interviewing looks like, why it matters, and shares practical techniques to help managers and leaders conduct interviews that identify the best candidates efficiently and fairly.
THE FIRST THING
What makes an effective interview?
Let’s start with defining our goal; a good interview that finds and selects the best candidate for the role. An effective interview is more than asking questions. It is a structured conversation designed to assess candidates against the needs of the role, while providing a positive candidate experience too.
Key elements of a successful interview that an interviewer can control, include:
- Preparation: understanding the role and its requirements
- Objective questioning: focusing on skills, behaviours and experiences
- Active listening: ensuring candidates are heard and understood
- Consistent assessment: comparing candidates fairly against defined criteria
By structuring interviews around these principles, you are far more likely to make informed hiring decisions.
An effective interview is more than asking questions.
View more about our Conference Speaker courses here
IMPORTANCE
Why effective interviewing matters
Hiring the wrong person can be costly in terms of time, money and team morale. Conversely, a well run interview helps ensure:
- The right skills and behaviours are identified
- Cultural fit is assessed objectively
- Candidates have a positive experience, enhancing your employer brand
- Decisions are defensible and based on evidence rather than gut instinct
For HR leaders, building interview capability across management teams is essential to improving recruitment outcomes and strengthening talent pipelines.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
When to focus on interview skills
Interviewing skills are important at all stages of hiring, but particularly:
- When filling senior or high impact roles
- In fast growing teams where hiring mistakes are costly
- When recruiting in competitive talent markets
- When building inclusive and unbiased recruitment processes
Investing in interview skills pays off by increasing the likelihood of selecting the right candidates and reducing turnover.
PRACTICAL TIPS
How to be a more effective interviewer
Here are practical tips managers can use to conduct better interviews.
1. Prepare thoroughly
Before the interview, review the role description, required skills, and key responsibilities. Identify what a successful candidate would need to demonstrate.
Develop a consistent set of questions that focus on competencies, experience and behaviours rather than subjective impressions.
2. Use structured, behavioural questions
Behavioural questions encourage candidates to provide concrete examples of past behaviour. For example:
- “Tell me about a time when you had to manage a difficult stakeholder. What did you do?”
- “Can you describe a project where you had to adapt quickly to change?”
These questions reduce bias and reveal how candidates are likely to perform in similar situations.
3. Listen actively
Effective interviewers focus on understanding the candidate’s perspective, not simply waiting for their turn to speak. Take notes, clarify points, and check your understanding.
Active listening helps uncover depth and nuance in responses, giving you a more accurate picture of the candidate.
You can read more advice and tips on active listening here.
4. Avoid leading or closed questions
Questions that suggest an answer or are answered with yes/no provide limited insight. Instead, ask open, neutral questions that encourage reflection and storytelling.
For example, instead of: “You work well under pressure, right?” ask: “Can you describe a situation where you had to perform under pressure?”
5. Assess objectively
Use a scoring framework or rubric to rate responses against the role requirements. This keeps decisions evidence based and consistent across candidates. Your HR or People team should be able to support you with guidance on this framework.
Focus on behaviours, results and competencies rather than impressions, assumptions or personal preferences.
6. Engage and inform
Interviews are two way conversations. Provide candidates with clarity about the role, expectations and next steps. This enhances their experience and allows them to assess whether the role and organisation are the right fit for them. Always give an opportunity for the candidate to ask questions too.
GOING DEEPER
Common challenges and how to overcome them
Managers often struggle with interviewing because:
- They rely on gut instinct rather than evidence
- They ask inconsistent questions across candidates
- They struggle to manage time or stay on topic
- They feel uncomfortable challenging answers or probing deeper
Structured preparation, question frameworks and active listening techniques help overcome these challenges, making interviews more effective and efficient. The result is that you find the very best people to become a part of your team, and ultimately, your team thrives and succeeds!
Building interview capability in your organisation
At Further, we work with organisations to support their managers and leaders’ practical interview skills. Our training focuses on real hiring scenarios, structured techniques, and communication behaviours that improve both selection outcomes and candidate experience.
If you would like to explore how interview skills training could help your managers hire more effectively, we would be very happy to talk.
Get in touch to find out more about our recruitment and communication skills training programmes and how we help organisations communicate further.
