A job interview should help you work out whether someone is right for your business.
It shouldn’t feel like an interrogation.
Sitting across the table firing question after question at a candidate might technically get you through your interview checklist, but it doesn’t necessarily help you understand the person sitting in front of you.
The best interviews are conversations.
They give both sides the opportunity to ask questions, understand each other and work out whether there’s genuinely a good fit.
And considering you could end up spending a significant amount of time working with this person, it’s worth actually getting to know them.
Interviews are naturally nerve-racking.
Even highly experienced candidates can walk into an interview feeling nervous, particularly when they really want the opportunity.
If someone is uncomfortable from the moment they sit down, you may never actually see the best version of them.
That doesn’t mean making the interview too easy or avoiding difficult questions. It means creating an environment where candidates feel comfortable enough to have a proper conversation.
Start with something simple.
Ask how their day has been. Talk briefly about the office, the journey in or something you've picked up from their background.
A few minutes spent breaking the ice can completely change the tone of the interview.
Remember, you're interviewing the candidate — but they're also interviewing you.
They're trying to understand:
what the role is really like
who they'll be working with
what their manager is like
what the culture feels like
what progression might look like
whether this is somewhere they actually want to spend their time
Giving candidates space to ask their own questions isn't something that should be squeezed into the final two minutes.
It should be part of the conversation.
The interview should help both sides leave with enough information to decide whether moving forward makes sense.
Structured interview questions are important. They help create consistency and make it easier to compare candidates fairly.
But don't become so focused on your list that you miss an interesting answer.
If a candidate says something worth exploring, explore it.
Ask:
“Tell me a little more about that.”
“What happened next?”
“What did you learn from that?”
“What did you enjoy about that role?”
“Why was that important to you?”
Those follow-up questions are often where you learn the most.
Your job as the interviewer isn't simply to ask questions.
It's to open up lines of conversation that help you understand the person.
Skills and experience obviously matter.
But you're not hiring a CV.
You're hiring someone who could be sitting next to you, working with your team, dealing with your customers and representing your business every day.
Understanding what motivates them, how they communicate and what they want from their career can be just as important as knowing whether they've used a particular system before.
You don't need to turn an interview into a personal Q&A session. Keep questions relevant and appropriate.
But allowing some personality into the conversation can tell you a lot about how someone might fit into the working environment.
One of the most common interview mistakes is expecting the candidate to do all the selling.
If you've found someone you think could be excellent, you also need to give them a reason to want the job.
Explain:
why the role exists
what they'll actually be doing
what success looks like
who they'll work with
where the role could lead
what's good about working for the business
what challenges they should realistically expect
Candidates should walk away understanding the opportunity better than they did when they arrived.
If they leave knowing very little beyond what was already written in the job advertisement, you've probably missed an opportunity.
There can sometimes be a strange dynamic in interviews where the interviewer feels like they need to test whether the candidate will stumble.
But the goal shouldn't be to catch someone out.
The goal is to get enough genuine information to make a good hiring decision.
Ask challenging questions where they're relevant. Dig into experience. Clarify inconsistencies. Ask for examples.
But do it because you're trying to understand the candidate — not because you're trying to prove you're the smartest person in the room.
This sounds obvious, but it's easy for interviewers to spend half the meeting talking about themselves, the company and the role.
Give candidates room to answer properly.
And actually listen to what they're saying rather than thinking about your next question.
Sometimes an answer will take the conversation somewhere much more valuable than your interview template ever could.
A good interview should ultimately help you answer a few simple questions:
Can this person do the job?
Do they want the job for the right reasons?
Can we give them what they're looking for?
Could we work well together?
Does the candidate have enough information to make their own decision about us?
You generally get much better answers to those questions through a genuine conversation than you do through an interrogation.
The interview is not a police interrogation.
Make people comfortable.
Ask good questions.
Follow interesting answers.
Give candidates an opportunity to ask their own questions.
And take the time to actually get to know the person sitting across from you.
You might end up working alongside them for the next five years.
It's probably worth having a conversation.
At Woods & Co, we work with businesses throughout the entire recruitment process, from finding the right candidates through to interviews, offers and onboarding.
If you're hiring and want advice on improving your interview process or finding the right people for your team, get in touch with Woods & Co.