What is Interview debrief? How to run it?

Interviews have become more and more complicated with technological advancements. This means that even organizations need to constantly improve themselves. One way to do this are interview debriefs. 

Interview debriefs have been used by companies for a long time and it is now more important than ever. So, what is an interview debrief and how important is it?

What is an interview debrief?

Interview debrief is when every person involved in hiring including recruiters, hiring managers, and HR meets after an interview. The aim of this meeting is to ensure that every person’s view of the candidate thus ensuring informed decisions are made.

The reason for such a meeting is to find out whether the candidate is worth hiring. It is usually the step where a candidate finds out his fate.

Interview debriefs only became an integral part in recent years and the reasons for it are simple. With job postings now requiring candidates who are multi-faceted, expecting just one person on the hiring team to make good judgements of their skills.

Thus even the interviewer needs help from his colleagues in order to determine whether the candidate is a good fit for the job. For example: the interviewer might not be well versed about a particular skill set of an employee but his colleague who might already be well versed in the said skill could be a better judge of the candidate.

Also Read: What is Personality Assessment? How to adopt it in hiri

Benefits of interview debrief

Eliminates miscommunication 

One of the easiest ways a hiring process can derail is miscommunication. In a workplace where recruiting does through several persons, miscommunication can easily seep in. And when it does seep in it is very hard to detect. It is because in the absence of an interview debrief, the mode of communication will most of the times falter at the same point.

However, in a debrief where every stakeholder is present, such situations can be sorted out. In fact, recognizing it can also help companies make better policies to ensure minimal to no miscommunication.

Helps to combat bias 

One of the greatest challenges that any organization faces on a daily basis is bias, especially in the hiring process. This included gender bias, racial bias or even socioeconomic bias. The main reason for bias is because of the human factor. At the end of the day interviews are conducted by a human and they are susceptible to biases.

An interview debrief is thus an effective way to combat any biases. With all the stakeholders communicating with each other such biases can easily be identified by a fresh set of eyes.

Also Read: How to overcome recruiter burnout

Builds a strong sense of teamwork 

Interview debriefs not only improve the hiring efficiency but also help in team bonding. Because the responsibility of conducting a flawless recruiting experience is on both the candidate and the hiring team. And an organization can easily make the hiring process at least on their behalf.

In addition, conducting debriefs also help foster a trustable and efficient environment. It also allows all the recruiting team to get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses which ensures that every stakeholder has a say in hiring employees.

Creates a holistic hiring experience 

More often than not, what makes a hiring process inefficient is it being monotonous. For example, an interviewer might focus too much on skills of a particular job posting while ignoring other skills such as leadership, or teamwork. However, in a real life work environment there are several skills that an employee needs.

Thus, debriefs help every person involved in the hiring process evaluate a candidate. So, a person in hiring who is well versed in the job posting skills will evaluate the candidate on that skills whereas someone as a  hiring manager could evaluate a candidate’s leadership skills or team camaraderie.

Also Read: What is Personality Assessment? How to adopt it in hiring

Interview debrief template

 Now that we know what interview debrief is and what its importance we need to see what template the organization should use. First of all, interview debriefs should be mandatory for every hiring as it helps the entire hiring process more robust.

Ensure every stakeholder is heard 

The first task in an interview debrief is to ensure the discussion encourages every stakeholder to share their views. It is because it is the primary reason why such interview debriefs are held. Every person involved in the process is an expert in different capabilities and thus is equally important in any such situation.

Also Read: What is Gender Bias in Hiring? Solutions to Prevent it

Questions to be asked 

To make sure that such debriefs are more efficient, a set of questions always be asked. Some examples of questions that should be asked during these discussions are as follows:

• What did you like about the candidate?
• Is he suitable for the job posting?\
• Was there anything concerning the candidate’s behavior or about his CV that came up during their interview?
• Which candidate was the best on all the metrics?

Reach consensus 

Interview debriefs at the end of the day are not much different from discussions. And in any discussions disagreements are bound to come up especially when the aim of such meetings is to hire an employee.

So, how do one reach consensus? Well, it depends on several situations. The first being for which role is the candidate being hired for? For example a hiring for a fresher or even those requiring less than five years of experience requires an employee to be more focused on skills rather than other abilities such as leadership and communications.

However, when hiring a senior employee the levels of skills might not be at the center of such hiring but rather their previous stints and their track record.

While these techniques may not work out for every debrief, they sure can help a company reach consensus on most occasions.

Hiring is always a very stressful job however it can be made easy through several methods. One of them is using Artificial Intelligence backed platforms such as BarRaiser, your one stop for effective hirings.

Our interview intelligence platform ensures that organizations can complete quick hiring. Our tool offers AI Interview Copilot which gives the interviewer real time updates during an interview to ensure it is smooth and flawless. 

BarRaiser uses structured interviews that eliminates hiring bias. On top of that we also provide interviewer training so that recruiters can get acclimatized to using the tool. For organizations who don;t want this can get their hands on our interview as a service where we will take over the entire recruiting process to get you the best candidates.