Structured interviews have emerged as one of the most powerful tools to improve hiring accuracy and fairness.

They’re not a script, they’re a system. Every candidate is asked the same, job-relevant questions and evaluated against the same scoring criteria. The structure eliminates bias, reduces noise and helps you compare candidates on consistent, observable behaviours.

Why They Work

• They predict performance. Research from Schmidt & Hunter shows structured interviews have a predictive validity of around 0.6 — roughly double that of unstructured interviews.

• They support compliance. When decisions are challenged, structured interviews provide a documented, defensible rationale.

• They create a better candidate experience. Fairness isn’t just ethical; it’s commercial. Candidates notice when they’re being evaluated systematically rather than arbitrarily.

What It Looks Like in Practice

Imagine you’re recruiting site supervisors for a national construction firm. Instead of loosely conversational interviews, you define three competencies: safety leadership, decision-making, and communication under pressure.

You ask every candidate the same three behavioural questions, capture their answers against clear scoring criteria, and involve two trained interviewers to reduce bias.

The result: faster hiring, less debate in debriefs, and clearer evidence of fit.

Where structured interviews bring consistency, validated assessments bring data.

Validated assessments are tools that have been scientifically tested to measure the traits and abilities that matter for job success. These include cognitive ability, situational judgment, and personality measures that link directly to workplace behaviour.

The key word here is validated,  meaning they’ve been proven, through research, to predict performance accurately and fairly across groups.

What They Reveal

• How candidates approach problems and make decisions.

• How they respond to pressure or uncertainty.

• Whether they’ll take shortcuts, seek feedback, or escalate risks.

These aren’t traits you can read from a CV. But they can make the difference between a high-performing team and a costly incident.

Example

One logistics company introduced a cognitive and safety-orientation assessment as part of its driver recruitment process. Within 12 months, it reduced safety incidents by 18% and turnover by 27%. Nothing else about the job changed,  just who they were hiring.

That’s the kind of measurable impact that happens when you shift from assumption to evidence.

When used together, validated assessments and structured interviews create a hiring process that’s both data-rich and human-centred.

Assessments provide the early signal, filtering large applicant pools quickly and objectively. Structured interviews add depth, testing for values, reasoning, and behavioural fit in a consistent way.

The combination does three things exceptionally well:

1. Improves predictive accuracy. Together they can predict over 60% of performance variation, compared to less than 20% using traditional methods.

2. Reduces bias and improves diversity. Objectivity in both stages ensures decisions are based on ability, not background.

3. Strengthens culture. You hire for both capability and alignment, reducing turnover and improving cohesion.