Creating Safe Design Interviews
Kind, safe interviewing processes as an antidote to poor hiring practices
Introduction
I'm certain we've all been there - feeling anxious before an interview, worrying about how we'll perform and how to counteract the traps planted in the upcoming one-sided questioning, to make the interviewers see our best potential.
Design interviews shouldn't be like this - they shouldn't make candidates stressed or force them to perform poorly. Allowing for such conditions not only hinders the quality of the interviewing process but also leads to poor hiring decisions and a lack of diversity and creativity in design teams.
In this newsletter, I'll highlight the challenges in traditional design interviews, why we need to solve these challenges, common solutions and how they fail, and the effective strategies I've discovered in creating a safe interviewing environment.
Implementing Safety in Design Interviews
Traditional interviews are often designed to catch and reveal the incompetency of candidates, stemming from good intentions to protect teams from untalented candidates. However, the result of such interviews is immense stress and anxiety, leading to suboptimal candidate performances.
With such outdated interviewing practices, companies risk missing out on great cultural adds to their teams through the misrepresentation of their culture fundamentals (misrepresented through the unsafe interviewing environment) and not enabling the most optimal performance of candidates.
By creating a safe design interview process, the hiring becomes much more insightful, kind, and meaningful. The result is an inclusive, effective, and human-centered process that benefits both the company and the candidates.
I suggest all of my readers evaluate their current interviewing process and if you find areas of improvement, start implementing some or all of the steps outlined in this guide to create and foster a safer and more effective interview environment.
Good Intentions, Bad Implementation
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Making an impactful change to your interviewing process doesn't come solely from good intentions. Feeling safe is of great importance, yet going overboard with it leads to bias and a lack of objective assessment. Lacking safety often pushes candidates away and misrepresents both you as an interviewer and what your company stands for.
Here are some pitfalls I've observed and personally experienced in my interviewing experience, stemming from good intentions but often leading to worse outcomes for the company, interviewers, and candidates:
The Trapper Approach: Laying traps to catch candidates off-guard creates stress and leads to suboptimal performance. Assessing candidates should happen through discussion, not by setting baits.
Interviewing Rigidity: Strict questioning without flexibility feels fake and stifles the natural flow of conversations, making candidates feel pressured, which often makes them underperform.
One-sided Evaluation: Many interviews focus solely on the candidate's responses without considering the interviewer's role in creating a conducive environment. An interview is a two-way process - it's equally important for the candidate to assess the company through the interviewer.
Confirmation Bias: Interviewers may unconsciously seek to confirm their initial impressions of the candidate, creating bias and distancing themselves from the objective reality of what the candidate is.
Halo Effect: A candidate's positive first impression or traits can overshadow other relevant aspects of their performance, leading to an imbalanced assessment.
Interviews are fraught with pitfalls, from baiting candidates with traps to being overly friendly, from one-sided evaluations to unstructured formats, from confirmation bias to the halo effect. The solution often lies in a simple concept: safety.
Safe Interviewing - What, Why, and How
Psychological safety is a crucial element of human interaction. It's something we unconsciously seek all the time, regardless of our knowledge, social status, wisdom, or depth of understanding. It has been one of our fundamental needs since our first breath. Knowing this, we can imagine how crucial it is in the context of interviews.
Through behavioral cues, subtle indicators that signal to someone that they are safe and valued, we could fundamentally change interviewing for the better.
Defining a Safe Interview
Belonging cues play a crucial role in creating a safe interview environment. They help candidates feel welcomed and valued, telling them, "It's okay for you to be here, we want to see you shine."
Research shows that the first five minutes of interaction strongly predict business outcomes, emphasizing the importance of belonging cues over content, so we could imagine their positive impact, especially in the domain of interviews.
Conclusion
Creating a safe and effective design interview environment is important not only for candidates, but for companies and interviewers. Traditional interview practices, with their inherent pitfalls such as rigid structures and confirmation bias, often lead to stress and poor hiring decisions. By implementing belonging cues, fostering collaboration, and empowering candidates, we can transform interview processes into a more inclusive and supportive experience. This approach not only benefits candidates by reducing stress and allowing them to showcase their true potential but also helps organizations make better hiring decisions.
Coming up next week
Stay tuned for our next newsletter, where we'll delve into a detailed step-by-step guide on developing safe design interviews. We'll cover how to practically implement belonging cues early, foster interviewing collaboration, empower candidates, use a flexible interview structure to actually sound human, and assess capabilities after establishing safety. Don't miss out on learning how these strategies can transform your hiring process into a more inclusive and effective experience for everyone involved.