Inclusive Interviewing Best Practices

6 min readMay 26, 2020

Your company or organization might not be in a position right now to do much (if any) hiring. However, now is a great time to reassess your interviewing guidelines and practices (or create some if you don’t have anything official already) so you are in a better position in the future when hiring kicks back up again.

Inclusive interviewing is one piece to a larger discussion around inclusive environments and inclusive work cultures. I’ll write more on those larger topics later. Here we will focus in on the interviewing portion.

What does inclusion mean? Merriam-Webster defines it as the following:

the act of including : the state of being included
the act or practice of including and accommodating people who have historically been excluded (as because of their race, gender, sexuality, or ability)

Applying inclusive principles to hiring might have you thinking this only applies to recruiting and supporting diverse candidates. And while, it’s true that this will help with recruiting and hiring more diverse folks, these practices actually help everyone.

The principles below can be applied to any interview process for roles within and outside of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) industries.

Inclusive Interviewing Principles

Inclusive Language

Be mindful of the language you are using when drafting the job description and the ultimate job posting. This will color how someone views what, and WHO, you are looking for in this role. Swap out specific pronouns like “he” or “she” for more inclusive generic ones like “they”. While terms like “rockstar” or “ninja” can sound cool and hip to describe your ideal candidate, they are best avoided in your descriptions as they can often dissuade non-male genders from applying.

Continue this mindfulness of the language you use throughout this process (and always!). Respect the pronouns and language individuals use for themselves.

Avoid the following:

Statements or imagery that perpetuate stereotypes (e.g. “pow wow”, “hold down the fort”, “that’s so gay”, “that’s ghetto”)
Idioms, jargon, and acronyms which might be specific to your company or require knowledge of sports or culture which is exclusionary to folks from different backgrounds (provide an explanation if you must use any of these)
Non-gender neutral terms (e.g. using the word “guys” to refer to a room or group of people regardless of the gender(s) present)

Stick with open and inclusive terms as much as possible.

https://www.uua.org/lgbtq/welcoming/ways/200008.shtml

Do your best to stick with positive, affirming terms vs negative terms.

https://open.buffer.com/inclusive-language-tech/

Unconscious Bias

Be mindful of unconscious bias within yourself and your interview team. Don’t worry, it’s natural. We all have unconscious biases. How we pay attention to them and what we do with them is what really matters.

There are lots of biases (unconscious and conscious ones) but Harver identifies 13 ones that impact hiring. Become aware of what these are and watch out for them so they don’t trip you up and lose out on hiring a great candidate.

Interview Team

Fill your interview committee with diverse folks if available. This gives candidates a view that there are individuals who are diverse and maybe relate better to them at the company. It also gives them a chance to connect with current employees of diverse background to ask them questions (in or after the interview).

While it’s important to find diverse folks to fill your interview panels, it might be more important to fill these seats with skilled interviewers. It’s important that the interview team provide a professional and comfortable experience for candidates.

Create interview blocks for candidates in a two-on-one setup. This provides a good balance to avoid awkwardness and also avoid feeling overwhelmed by a large panel.

Provide all interviewers with some basic training on interviews. This should cover legal boundaries (e.g. can’t ask women about pregnancies) and ensure they understand the company’s values so they can be solid representatives. Look for that “values fit” instead of the old “culture fit.”

Teach the interviewers the importance to thoughtfully dive deeper during the interview to reach answers.

Scoring System

Before the first interview, have the interview team discuss and agree upon a set scoring system to rank candidates against. Is experience more important than academic education? What skills are critical for success in this role? Have clear criteria to score the candidates against ready ahead of time and stick to it.

After each interview, have the interview team provide their feedback and their candidate score to the hiring manager / committee within 24 hours and before the next interview.

The Interview

The actual interview should be very structured and consistent for every candidate who applies. That means every candidate, whether it’s the candidate you have been personally recruiting, someone internally you think might qualify for the role, someone internally you don’t think qualifies, or someone from outside the company who you don’t know that’s interested. Every candidate should receive the same experience for the interview and be given an equal chance for the position.

Check with the candidate ahead of time to learn if there are any preferable accommodations that could be made to make the interview process easier (e.g. performing an in-person interview in a space large enough to accommodate a wheel chair or providing printouts in large print)
Have a set of standard questions you are going to ask ready up front before the first interview, and use them consistently for each candidate
Ask flexible, open-ended questions to understand how the candidate thinks and problem solves
Avoid asking trivia questions or single-answer questions
Don’t ask gotcha questions or brainteasers that put the candidate on the spot and have nothing to do with the role the person is applying for
Focus questions on the “how” a candidate handled situations in the past not as much on the “what” they think are their best traits

The point of the questions you are asking in the interview should provide ways for the candidate to show the value they would bring to the company within this role. The point of the questions is not to trick the candidate or stress them out. Be supportive and understanding that this is already a stressful process to go through. A good interviewer will help the candidate through it and still get the important information needed to make a decision.

Respect Candidates

Both the candidate and the interview team have other things going on in their day, their lives, and their current jobs. Be respectful of their time. You never know if a candidate is on a tight schedule for child care, transit requirements, or other constraints.

Don’t cancel or do last minute reschedules of interviews
Don’t schedule interviews back-to-back — provide room in between in case of anything unexpected that might cause it to run over and to avoid any feeling of being rushed
Test any technical tools needed for the interview ahead of time (e.g. video conferencing)
Show up on time and be prepared
End the interview on time

At the end of the interview, be sure to thank your candidate for their time. Interviews are stressful and take time away from normal responsibilities. Be grateful you had the opportunity to talk to each and every candidate.

More Resources

Looking for more information on how to setup inclusive hiring guidelines for your organization? Check out these resources: