Why Your Interview Process Is Losing You Good Candidates

Here's something nobody tells you when you become a manager: at some point, you're going to have to hire someone. And nobody is going to teach you how to do it. You'll be handed a job spec that was last updated three years ago, pointed towards a meeting room, and told to 'have a chat' with a few candidates. Then you'll be expected to make a decision that costs your company anywhere from £12,000 to £30,000 if you get it wrong. No pressure.

I spent years at Reed in Partnership delivering government employment programmes, managing end-to-end recruitment pipelines, and placing people into sustainable work. I hit 135% of placement targets because I learned — the hard way — that hiring well is a skill, not an instinct. And most managers have never been taught it.

The Gut Feel Problem

Let's start with the most common hiring mistake: trusting your gut. You meet a candidate. They're confident, articulate, well-dressed. They remind you of yourself ten years ago. You like them. You hire them. Three months later, they can't do the job. What happened? Your gut told you they were great, but your gut was measuring likability, not capability. Research consistently shows that unstructured interviews — the 'let's just have a chat' approach — are among the worst predictors of job performance. They're barely better than flipping a coin.

The problem is that most managers have never been shown an alternative. They interview the way they were interviewed, which was probably also unstructured, and the cycle continues. Meanwhile, the best candidates — the ones who are quietly competent rather than loudly confident — get overlooked.

The Job Spec Nobody Reads

Before you even get to the interview, there's usually a problem with the job specification. Most job specs are wish lists, not role descriptions. They ask for ten years of experience for a mid-level role. They list fifteen 'essential' skills when only four actually matter. They're written in corporate jargon that puts off exactly the kind of practical, no-nonsense people you actually want.

A good job spec does three things. First, it describes what the person will actually do day-to-day, not a list of responsibilities copied from HR's template. Second, it separates genuine requirements from nice-to-haves, and is honest about which is which. Third, it gives candidates a reason to want the job. What's the team like? What will they learn? What does progression look like? If your job spec reads like a legal document, don't be surprised when the best candidates scroll past it.

Structured Interviews: The Alternative That Works

A structured interview means every candidate gets the same questions, in the same order, scored against the same criteria. It sounds obvious, but almost nobody does it. Here's why it matters: when you ask different candidates different questions, you're not comparing like with like. You're comparing your impression of one conversation against your impression of a completely different conversation. That's not assessment — that's guesswork.

Design your questions around the actual competencies the role requires. If the job needs someone who can manage competing priorities, ask every candidate to describe a time they did that. If it needs someone who can have difficult conversations, ask for a specific example. Then score each answer on a simple scale — 1 to 4 works well — against pre-defined criteria. What does a great answer look like? What does a weak one look like? Write it down before you start interviewing, not after.

The Bias You Don't Know You Have

Every interviewer has biases. Affinity bias makes you favour people who are similar to you. Halo effect means one positive trait colours your entire assessment. Recency bias means you remember the last candidate more vividly than the first. Confirmation bias means you spend the interview looking for evidence that supports your first impression, rather than genuinely assessing the person.

You can't eliminate bias entirely, but you can reduce it significantly. Use a scoring framework and fill it in immediately after each interview, not at the end of the day when the details have blurred. Have more than one interviewer. Compare scores independently before discussing. And be honest with yourself: if you can't articulate why you prefer one candidate over another using the scoring criteria, your preference is probably bias, not evidence.

The Question That Tells You Everything

After years of interviewing, there's one question I always come back to. It's not clever or tricky. It's simply this: 'Tell me about a time something went wrong at work, and what you did about it.' That's it. The answer tells you almost everything you need to know. Do they take responsibility, or do they blame others? Do they describe what they learned, or do they just describe what happened? Do they show self-awareness, or do they present themselves as the hero of every story? A candidate who can honestly describe a failure and what they took from it is worth ten candidates who can only talk about their successes.

What Good Looks Like

A good hiring process isn't complicated. It's a clear, honest job spec that attracts the right people. It's a structured interview with consistent questions and a scoring framework. It's more than one interviewer to reduce bias. It's a decision based on evidence, not gut feel. And it's a candidate experience that's respectful, transparent, and timely — because the best candidates have options, and they're judging you as much as you're judging them.

If you're a new manager about to hire for the first time, don't wing it. The cost of a bad hire isn't just financial — it's the impact on your team's morale, your own credibility, and the months you'll spend managing someone out of a role they should never have been in. Take the time to get it right. Your future self will thank you.