By Ty Sutherland

Hiring is one of the highest-leverage decisions a manager makes. Get it right and you raise the entire team’s level. Get it wrong and you spend months managing the consequences — performance issues, team friction, and eventually a restart of the whole process.

Most hiring processes are designed by HR and administered by managers who haven’t thought deeply about what they’re actually looking for. This guide changes that.

Start with a Rigorous Job Definition

Before you write a job description, answer these questions in writing:

• What are the three most important outcomes this person needs to deliver in their first 12 months?
• What decisions will they make independently?
• What does a great performance look like vs. an acceptable one?
• What skills and experiences are truly required — vs. nice to have?
• What does this role need to be able to do that your current team can’t?

Most job descriptions are a list of responsibilities and requirements copied from the last time the role was filled. They describe activities, not outcomes. Writing outcome-based job definitions forces clarity about what you actually need — which then shapes your screening, interviewing, and evaluation.

The Structured Interview: Why It Matters

Unstructured interviews — where you ask different questions to different candidates and go wherever the conversation takes you — have consistently low predictive validity. They’re largely an exercise in measuring first impressions and interview performance, not job performance.

Structured interviews use the same questions for every candidate, scored against a consistent rubric. This reduces bias and dramatically improves the quality of the signal you get. It requires more preparation — and produces far better hires.

The Best Interview Question Types

Behavioural Questions

“Tell me about a time when…” These questions probe past behaviour as a predictor of future behaviour. The STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) gives you a structure for evaluating the answer. Probe for specifics — vague answers often indicate limited experience with the scenario.

• “Tell me about a time you had to deliver difficult feedback. What was the situation and how did you handle it?”
• “Describe a project that didn’t go as planned. What happened and what did you do?”
• “Tell me about a time you had to influence someone who didn’t report to you.”

Situational Questions

“What would you do if…” These assess judgment in hypothetical scenarios relevant to the role. Useful when the candidate doesn’t have direct past experience.

• “If you joined and found the team was significantly behind on a key project with two weeks to deadline, what’s the first thing you’d do?”
• “Imagine a stakeholder is demanding changes to the scope mid-project. How would you handle that?”

Work Sample Tests

Asking candidates to complete a relevant task — a short analysis, a presentation, a written plan — is the single highest-validity predictor of performance. Keep them short (no more than 2–3 hours of candidate time), relevant to actual work, and compensated if substantial.

What to Look For Beyond Skills

Skills and experience explain what someone can do. Character and judgment explain how they’ll do it. Both matter. Things to probe beyond the CV:

• How they learn: Do they seek feedback? Have they changed their mind on something important? Can they describe a failure and what they took from it?
• How they handle ambiguity: Most roles involve more uncertainty than the job description suggests. How comfortable is this person with incomplete information?
• How they treat others: Watch how they interact with everyone during the process — reception staff, interviewers at all levels. Consistent respect across levels is a meaningful signal.
• Self-awareness: Can they accurately describe their strengths and development areas? Overconfident or self-deprecating extremes are both worth noting.

Reference Checks: Do Them Properly

Most reference checks are pro forma. A better approach: ask the candidate to provide references from people who have managed them directly. Then ask specific, structured questions:

• “What were Alex’s three biggest contributions in this role?”
• “What would Alex need to develop to reach the next level?”
• “Would you hire Alex again? In what type of role would they be most successful?”
• “Is there anything about how Alex works that I should know going in?”

Listen for what’s said as much as what’s not said. Vague or lukewarm answers to direct questions are meaningful signals. Strong references are specific and enthusiastic.

The Hiring Decision: Avoiding Common Traps

• Hiring under urgency: Pressure to fill a seat quickly leads to lowering standards. A bad hire costs more time than an extended search. Hold the bar.
• Affinity bias: Favouring candidates who remind you of yourself. Structured interviews and diverse interview panels reduce this.
• Discounting culture add for culture fit: Culture fit often means “like us.” Culture add — does this person bring something we need? — is a more useful question.
• Ignoring red flags: Every candidate shows you who they are during the process. Lateness, defensiveness, inconsistent answers, poor treatment of staff — these don’t improve at hire.

Onboarding: The Extension of the Hiring Decision

The hiring process ends at offer acceptance. But whether you made a good hire is determined by onboarding. A strong new hire with a weak onboarding experience becomes a disengaged employee. Strong team management means making the first 90 days count — clear expectations, early wins, regular check-ins, and visible investment in the person’s success.

Frequently Asked Questions: Hiring for Managers

What makes a good hiring manager?

Clarity about what the role actually needs to achieve, the discipline to use structured interviews, the ability to assess beyond first impressions, and the willingness to hold the bar even under urgency. Good hiring managers also invest in onboarding — they see the hire as a process that continues through the first 90 days, not ending at offer acceptance.

What is the most effective interview technique?

Structured behavioural interviews combined with work sample tests. Behavioural questions probe past performance with specific examples. Work samples test actual capability on relevant tasks. Together they provide the highest predictive validity of job performance compared to unstructured interviews or CV review alone.

How do you avoid bias in hiring?

Use structured interviews (same questions, same scoring rubric for all candidates), diverse interview panels, and deliberate evaluation sessions that require evidence rather than gut feel. Reduce the emphasis on “culture fit” and replace it with “culture add.” Blind resume screening — removing names, schools, and dates where possible — also reduces initial screening bias.

When should you reject a candidate?

When they don’t meet the defined requirements for the role — not when you have a vague uneasy feeling. If you’re using structured interviews and a scoring rubric, the evaluation criteria are defined before you meet the candidate. Reject when the evidence doesn’t support the hire. Don’t reject because the person is different from what you’re used to.