Top Interview Techniques Recruiters Must Know
Discover the top interview techniques every recruiter must know to reduce bias, improve fairness, and make smarter hiring decisions.
An interview can make or break a hiring decision. But not every interview style gives you the same results. Some recruiters treat interviews like casual conversations, others rely on gut feeling, and some jump straight into technical grilling. The problem is, without a clear approach, interviews become inconsistent, unfair, and harder to evaluate.
With the right methods, recruiters can keep the process structured, make fair comparisons, and get beyond surface-level answers. Instead of guessing whether someone will succeed, you can build a clearer picture based on evidence, consistency, and real candidate insights.
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Why effective interview techniques matter
Interviews are one of the most important steps in hiring, but they’re also one of the easiest places for things to go wrong. When recruiters rely on unstructured conversations, it can feel natural in the moment, but the outcome is often inconsistent. One candidate gets an easy question, another faces something much tougher, and suddenly it’s impossible to compare them fairly.
That inconsistency doesn’t just make hiring harder; it also opens the door to bias. Without a clear framework, decisions end up based on gut feeling instead of real evidence. And gut feelings, as most recruiters know, can be misleading.
Using effective interview techniques changes that. A structured approach keeps things fair, gives every candidate the same opportunity to show their strengths, and produces insights you can actually measure. Instead of asking, “Did I like this person?” you’re asking, “Did they show the skills and behaviors this role requires?”
Good technique isn’t just about making interviews smoother, it’s about making better hiring decisions.
Structured Interviews
A structured interview is exactly what it sounds like, a preset list of questions asked in the same order to every candidate. Instead of letting the conversation wander, you stick to a plan.
Why does this matter? Because structure brings fairness. Every candidate gets the same questions, in the same way, which makes it much easier to compare answers side by side. You’re no longer judging based on who you “clicked” with, you’re judging based on how well someone actually responded.
For example, imagine you’re hiring a sales manager. In a structured interview, you’d ask every candidate the same questions about hitting quotas, handling objections, and leading a team. At the end, you can clearly see how each person approached the same challenges, which gives you a much stronger basis for decision-making.
The downside is that structured interviews can feel a bit rigid if taken too far. That’s why the best recruiters balance structure with natural follow-up questions. Think of structure as the backbone of the interview. It keeps things consistent, while still allowing space for candidates to show their personality.
Behavioral Interviewing With the STAR Method
If you’ve been in recruiting for a while, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “past behavior is the best predictor of future performance.” That’s the idea behind behavioral interviewing. Instead of asking candidates what they would do, you ask what they have done in real situations.
The STAR method is a simple framework that helps both recruiters and candidates structure these answers. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. Here’s how it works:
Situation: Ask the candidate to describe the context. What was going on?
Task: What role or responsibility did they have in that moment?
Action: What steps did they actually take?
Result: What happened in the end?
For example, let’s say you’re interviewing a project manager. Instead of asking, “Are you good at handling tight deadlines?” (which usually gets a yes or no answer), you ask, “Tell me about a time you had to deliver a project under a very tight deadline. What was the situation, and how did you handle it?”
A strong candidate might walk you through how they identified the biggest risks, reprioritized tasks, and kept stakeholders aligned. Then they’d explain the result, like delivering on time or learning a lesson from what didn’t go well.
Why is this powerful? Because it takes vague claims like “I’m a good problem solver” and turns them into specific, concrete examples. It also helps you spot patterns. If a candidate consistently talks about how their team handled challenges but struggles to describe their own actions, that tells you something about their level of ownership.
The STAR method also reduces bias. Instead of judging based on confidence or storytelling skills alone, you’re listening for a structured response that covers each part. It’s easier to compare candidates fairly when you use the same framework for all of them.
Tip: Keep your notes organized around STAR. Write down short bullets for each part of the answer. This way, when you review candidates later, you’ll have clear, evidence-based examples to look back on instead of vague impressions.
Active Listening and Open-Ended Questions
As a recruiter, the best thing you can do in an interview is actually listen. It sounds obvious, but in practice, many interviews end up being more about the recruiter talking than the candidate. Active listening flips that. It means giving your full attention, showing engagement, and encouraging the candidate to go deeper.
Active listening has a few key parts:
Body language: maintain eye contact, nod, and avoid distractions like checking notes while the candidate is speaking.
Verbal cues: simple words like “I see,” or “that’s interesting” show you’re tuned in.
Follow-ups: asking “What happened next?” or “How did you feel about that?” helps candidates share more detail.
Pair this with open-ended questions, and you’ll get richer answers. Closed questions only give you a yes or no. Open-ended ones invite a story.
Compare these:
Closed: “Did you finish the project on time?”
Open: “Tell me about the steps you took to deliver the project on time.”
The difference is huge. The second question gives the candidate space to explain their process, decisions, and impact.
Candidates often reveal their best insights when you stop rushing to the next question and let silence do the work. If someone pauses to think, resist the urge to jump in. A few extra seconds can unlock details you’d otherwise miss.
Active listening also makes interviews feel more human. Candidates notice when you’re really engaged. It reduces stress, builds trust, and leaves them with a positive impression of the company. That matters, because even if they don’t get the job, they’ll remember how they were treated.
Tip: Record your follow-up questions in your notes. They often highlight the most important parts of the interview, because they show where you thought it was worth digging deeper.
Situational Interviewing
Sometimes, past experience isn’t enough to judge how someone will perform in a new role. That’s where situational interviewing comes in. Instead of asking what a candidate did before, you ask what they would do if they faced a challenge that’s relevant to the job.
Situational questions usually start with phrases like, “Imagine you were faced with…” or “What would you do if…”. They put the candidate into a realistic scenario and give you a glimpse of how they think on their feet.
For example, if you’re hiring a customer success manager, you might ask:
“Imagine a key client is unhappy and threatens to leave. What steps would you take to keep them on board?”
Or for a team leader role:
“If two team members disagreed on how to move forward, how would you handle the conflict?”
The goal isn’t to test creativity for its own sake. It’s to see how the candidate prioritizes, problem-solves, and communicates under pressure. Strong answers usually have structure. They’ll describe the steps they’d take, why they’d make certain choices, and how they’d measure success.
One thing to watch for is candidates giving overly “perfect” answers. In real life, problems rarely resolve without trade-offs. Listen for whether they acknowledge challenges and risks, not just ideal outcomes. That honesty can be more valuable than a polished, textbook reply.
Situational interviewing also helps you evaluate candidates with less direct experience. For instance, someone moving into their first leadership role might not have stories about managing conflict yet, but they can still explain how they’d approach it. That gives you a sense of their potential, not just their past.
Tip: Tie your scenarios closely to the actual job. Generic questions don’t reveal much, but role-specific ones give you insight into how well the candidate understands the realities of the position.
Competency-based interviewing
Every role has a set of skills and traits that really matter. Competency-based interviewing is about targeting those directly. Instead of broad questions like “Tell me about yourself,” you focus on evaluating specific abilities tied to the job.
A competency can be technical, like coding in Python, or behavioral, like influencing stakeholders. The key is to define them before the interview so you know exactly what you’re measuring.
For example, if you’re hiring a product manager, the role might require competencies such as problem-solving, cross-team communication, and strategic thinking. Your questions should point directly at those:
Problem-solving: “Describe a time when you had to make a quick decision with incomplete data. What steps did you take?”
Communication: “Tell me about a situation where you had to explain a complex idea to a non-technical team. How did you make sure they understood?”
Strategic thinking: “Share an example of when you had to prioritize competing product features. How did you decide what came first?”
The strength of competency-based interviewing is that it creates a level playing field. Instead of being swayed by personality or small talk, you’re comparing candidates against the same predetermined criteria. This makes decisions fairer and easier to justify if challenged later.
It also prevents the classic mistake of hiring someone who interviews “well” but doesn’t have the skills to deliver once they’re on the job. By focusing on concrete competencies, you move beyond charisma and focus on substance.
Tip: Align your competency framework with both the job description and the company’s core values. A candidate might have the technical skills but if they lack critical behavioral competencies like collaboration or adaptability, they may not succeed in the role long-term.
Pulling It All Together
Each of these techniques has its strengths. Structured interviews bring consistency. Behavioral questions reveal patterns from the past. Situational ones test how candidates think in the moment. Competency-based questions connect directly to role requirements. And conversational touches build trust and make the experience positive.
The trick isn’t choosing just one method, it’s blending them in a way that fits both the role and your style as a recruiter. For example, you might start with a bit of small talk to build rapport, move into structured questions for fairness, add in a behavioral STAR question for depth, and close with a situational scenario to see how the candidate thinks under pressure.
This mix gives you the best of both worlds, fairness and flexibility. You’re able to compare candidates against consistent criteria, while still allowing space for authentic conversations that reveal who they really are.
And here’s why that matters. Hiring isn’t just about finding someone who looks good on paper. It’s about understanding how they solve problems, how they collaborate, and how they’ll handle the realities of the role. Effective interview techniques give you that insight. Without them, you’re left with guesswork.
At the end of the day, an interview is more than a box to tick in the hiring process. It’s the moment where you move past resumes and job descriptions and start to see who a candidate really is. That’s why the techniques you use matter so much.
Building Rapport With Candidates During Interviews
Interviews can feel stressful for candidates, even the most experienced ones. A recruiter might run dozens of interviews in a week, but for the candidate, this could be their one shot at a dream job. That imbalance creates tension. When candidates feel nervous, they’re less likely to share authentic stories, and you end up with answers that don’t show their full potential.
That’s why building rapport is one of the most underrated skills in recruiting. It’s not about being overly casual or forcing small talk, it’s about creating an environment where candidates feel respected, heard, and comfortable enough to be themselves. A strong connection in the interview room benefits both sides. Candidates perform better, and recruiters get a clearer picture of who they really are.
Here are three practical ways to build that rapport: