By: Maria Lopez de la Cruz, Talent Acquisition Manager, Cultivate
When serving as a hiring manager, it is essential to consider the candidate’s experience and panelist participation when selecting a top hire to join your organization.
Below you will find what factors to consider when constructing your panel interview while also keeping the candidate experience top of mind alongside why these incorporations matter so much during a selection process.
Candidate Experience
Communicate With Empathy — Be Transparent About How To Prepare
- Why This Matters: You can not assume that all top candidates are good interviewers. Be transparent with candidates by sharing helpful insights on how to prepare for an upcoming interview that is scheduled with your hiring team.
- How To Implement: When inviting candidates to panel interviews, share with them that you would like for them to think about specific examples that highlight their qualifications for the open role, what themes will be discussed during the panel interview, and inform them of who will be part of the interview panel.
Provide Accommodations
- Why This Matters: Not all candidates have the same capabilities so it is important to level out the playing field by being of service to candidates and providing accommodations that will support their candidacy.
- How To Implement: Ask all candidates directly if they need any additional accommodations to ensure that they know you are there to support their candidacy.
Panelist Participation
Implement Scorecards
- Why This Matters: Panelists must be well aware of the required qualifications and deeply understand the job description. Once panelists are well aware of the open role qualifications, ensuring that a scorecard is reflective of the role qualifications will support decision-making on evaluating the most qualified candidates.
- How To Implement: Construct a scorecard that is reflective of the job opening requirements and schedule a prep meeting where you can review the scorecard with panelists before the panel interviews begin.
Only Debrief Candidate Recommendations After All Panel Interviews Have Been Completed
- Why This Matters: Make sure that the panelists or you as the hiring manager do not share any immediate thoughts on the candidate once the candidate interview has been completed since you do not want others to be influenced by group or seniority consensus.
- How To Implement: Instead, instruct all panelists to submit their scorecards by the end of the day while making sure not to comment with others on interviewee qualifications so you have unbiased feedback. Any candidate recommendations should not be discussed until a debrief meeting where panelists will rank each candidate and provide reasoning behind their final recommendations.
