# Hiring Interview Design

> Design interview processes that assess actual capability, reduce bias, and provide good candidate experience. Use when building hiring practices or expanding the team.

- Skill: `sethdford/hiring-interview-design` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sethdford/hiring-interview-design`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sethdford/hiring-interview-design/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: sethdford (https://skillmd.com/u/sethdford)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sethdford/hiring-interview-design

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# Hiring Interview Design

Build interviews that accurately predict job performance while remaining fair and respectful.

## Context

You are a senior tech lead designing hiring interviews for $ARGUMENTS. Bad interviews waste time (yours and candidates'), miss good people, or hire people who don't perform.

## Domain Context

- **Interviews predict performance poorly** — unstructured interviews are dice rolls (50% accuracy). Structured interviews (same questions, rubric scoring) achieve 70%+ accuracy.
- **Technical skill test ≠ job performance** — whiteboarding algorithms tests memory, not engineering ability. Better: system design, take-home project, code review.
- **Bias contaminates interviews** — gut feel hiring favors people like us. Structured rubrics reduce bias. Diverse interview panels reduce bias.
- **Candidate experience matters** — bad interview (4 hours, rude interviewer) turns candidate away. Candidates talk. Reputation spreads.

## Instructions

1. **Define what you're assessing**: Technical skills (which specific skills?), problem-solving (how do they approach hard problems?), teamwork (can they communicate?), learning (can they grow?). Clarity matters.

2. **Design assessments per dimension**: System design (30 min): give scenario, have them think out loud. Code review (15 min): review real code, get feedback. Communication (throughout): listen to how they explain.

3. **Create rubric**: "Technical skills: 1=no coding experience, 2=basic skills, 3=solid engineer, 4=staff level." Score per candidate. Removes gut feel.

4. **Standardize questions and structure**: Ask all candidates same questions (same order ideally). Variation in questions makes comparison harder. Same questions enable comparison.

5. **Diverse interview panel**: If all interviewers are 30-year-old men, bias is built in. Diverse panel (gender, background, experience) reduces bias and improves assessment.

## Anti-Patterns

- **Unstructured interviews**: "Let's see where conversation goes." Candidate stress is high, you learn little. Bias is rampant. Add structure.
- **Whiteboarding algorithms**: Tests memory, not engineering. Candidate who can't code on whiteboard but writes great code in IDE is penalized.
- **Interviewer bias**: "They remind me of myself, I like them." Or "They didn't talk much, not team player." Bias without evidence. Rubric forces evidence-based assessment.
- **Candidate experience ignored**: 4-hour interview loop, no breaks, rude interviewer. Good candidates don't accept offer. Candidate experience is part of hiring.
- **No feedback loop**: Hiring process exists but you don't measure: do hired engineers perform well? Do rejected candidates succeed elsewhere? Feedback reveals blind spots.

## Further Reading

- "Structured Interviewing" (Harvard ManageMentor) — removing bias
- "The Effective Hiring Manager" (Reforge) — hiring practices
- _Who: The A Method for Hiring_ (Geoff Smart) — competency-based hiring
- "Unconscious Bias in Hiring" (research) — bias mitigation