Alva Academy

Master structured interviews with Alva’s interview templates

  • 6 lessons
  • 27min
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Introduction

About this course

Take part in the Alva Academy's video series to master the art of using structured interview templates effectively. This course is designed for Talent Acquisition Managers and Hiring Managers who are keen to refine their interviewing techniques to achieve accurate and predictive candidate assessments. Through this course, you will gain a deep understanding of how structured interviews can streamline your hiring process and enhance the objectivity of your evaluations. 

Here’s what you’ll learn:
    • How to craft the perfect interview setup tailored to meet your specific hiring needs, ensuring you address the essential competencies for the role.
    • Minimise Bias: Learn to apply competency-based interviewing techniques that help reduce unconscious bias, promoting fairness and diversity in your hiring process.
    • Develop practical and effective interview questions that delve deep into candidates' competencies and potential.
    • How to use our interview scorecards to make informed hiring decisions based on consistent and reliable data.
    • Build and customise your own interview templates that are grounded in evidence-based practises, enhancing the predictiveness of your interviews.

By the end of this series, you will be equipped with the tools and knowledge to conduct structured interviews that not only assess current capabilities but also potential for future success within your organisation.

Alva Interview Templates

Lesson 01

What makes up a talent

About this lesson

In this lesson, we explore the complex nature of talent using an iceberg metaphor, where visible skills and behaviours are just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface lies essential knowledge and experience that predicts potential performance in a role, crucial for recruitment. We emphasise the difference between 'readiness'—immediate capability to perform specific tasks—and 'potential'—innate abilities that forecast long-term success in roles such as leadership. Alva Labs integrates these concepts through methods like psychometric testing to enhance recruitment processes, making sure candidates not only fit the current role but also hold future growth promise.

Lesson 02

Structured Interview - What research tells us

About this lesson

This lesson discusses the effectiveness of structured interviews in predicting job performance, contrasting them with less reliable unstructured methods. Structured interviews, when executed correctly, were shown to have good predictive validity, rated between 0.4 and 0.5. These interviews excel in assessing candidates' readiness and job-specific skills but are less effective for evaluating personality or logical abilities. Emphasising the importance of a uniform questioning approach, the video explains how structured interviews can mitigate biases, such as undue influence from a candidate's extroversion, guaranteeing a more objective and relevant evaluation process.

Lesson 03

Structured interview - Types of questions

About this lesson

This lesson elaborates on the importance of pre-planning questions for structured interviews to accurately assess candidates. It highlights the effectiveness of situation-behaviour-result questions that probe experiences to predict future behaviour. Such questions are vital for roles requiring customer interaction, asking candidates to detail past situations, their actions, and outcomes. Additionally, situational questions are recommended, especially for less experienced candidates, to gauge how they might handle future scenarios. The consistent use of these structured question formats is key to comparing candidates fairly and effectively.

Lesson 04

Structured interview - Judgement of the responses

About this lesson

This lesson focuses on the importance of having a structured approach to evaluating responses in structured interviews. It emphasises the need for a clear, consistent rating scale to assess candidate answers effectively. Establishing specific scoring criteria helps mitigate bias and provides a fair assessment of all candidates. For instance, a structured scale with defined anchors can prevent subjective judgements influenced by a candidate's extroversion or similarity to the interviewer. The section also advises starting with a simple scale and gradually refining it to include detailed examples for each score level, thus enhancing the precision and reliability of the interview process.

Lesson 05

Structured interviews - Combining the judgements

About this lesson

This lesson discusses the practicalities of rating candidates during structured interviews, suggesting that assessors focus on the interview itself rather than multitasking between questioning and rating. We recommend noting down responses during the interview and conducting ratings afterward to improve accuracy. Additionally, using a mechanical method to combine interview ratings, as facilitated by systems like Alva, is advised to ensure fair consideration of all candidate evaluations and minimise bias influenced by the interviewer's personality traits. This approach helps maintain objectivity and balance in assessing candidates.

Lesson 06

How to use Alva's interview function (demo)

About this lesson

Dive right into the Alva platform in this demo.