Interview Template: Steps & Examples

The article "Interview Template: Steps & Examples" by Allie Blackham emphasizes the importance of using structured interview templates as strategic blueprints that ensure consistent, comprehensive, and fair candidate evaluations, thereby enhancing hiring effectiveness, reducing bias, and streamlining the recruitment process.

Mastering the Art of Interview Templates

Aug 6, 2024

HR and Recruiting Industry Information, Interviewing, Recruiting Best Practices

Allie Blackham

The journey toward hiring excellence begins long before a candidate steps into the interview room, and it starts with a strategic approach to interview planning.

Understanding the preference for structured interview planning over “going in blind” is crucial in today’s competitive job market. A well-prepared interviewer not only exudes confidence but also ensures a comprehensive evaluation of each candidate, making the process more effective, efficient and fair.

Here, we’ll discuss interview templates, including what they are, why they’re valuable and how you can go about creating your very own to take into your next interview.

What Is an Interview Template, and Why Is It Valuable?

Interview templates serve as a blueprint for the interview process, ensuring that no question is left unasked and every candidate is evaluated on a consistent set of criteria. This level of organization and foresight is what sets apart successful hiring processes from the rest. By adopting and using interview templates, companies can streamline their hiring process, reduce biases and ultimately make better hiring decisions.

An effective interview template is equal parts art and science, as it requires a deep understanding of the job role, the company culture and the qualities of an ideal candidate. With an interview template, interviewers can easily navigate interview processes, ensuring each interview is as productive and insightful as possible. This strategic approach not only enhances the quality of hires but also contributes to a positive candidate experience that can reflect well on your brand.

What Does an Interview Template Typically Look Like?

While there is no set-in-stone template that exists as a standard across industries (because each is unique and may require a slightly different approach), we can draw inspiration from what we know works well in any scenario and for any role.

In general, an interview template should include most of the following:

Personal introduction
Company name and introduction
Role overview
Candidate background
Behavioral questions
Role-specific questions
Problem-solving questions
Cultural fit questions
Candidate questions
Closing

If you’re unsure what some of these sections of the template entail, don’t worry! Below, you’ll find a guide to creating your own interview form from scratch.

Why Are Interview Templates Valuable?

The advantages of using interview templates are manifold. They not only save time and reduce errors but also enhance the quality of the hiring process. With templates, companies can ensure that each interview is conducted professionally and efficiently, leading to better hiring outcomes and a stronger workforce. In brief, here are the key benefits of these templates:

Time savings: Templates provide a strong starting point for interviews, helping reduce the time needed to create documents or processes from scratch. They also simplify and streamline repetitive recruiting tasks, allowing interviewers to focus on the content rather than its format or structure.
Reduced errors: Predefined structures minimize the chance of omitting crucial information or making formatting errors that can crop up during the interview. For example, with templates, you’ll be less likely to forget to ask an important question that could sway the interview one way or the other.
Improved record keeping: Templates ensure that all relevant information is captured and documented systematically. Plus, it is easier to organize, store, retrieve and extract information when needed since they’re all laid out the same way.

Creating an Interview Template

Whether you have an exciting interview template, take a moment to review this guidance and structure and either build out your own from scratch or apply some of what you see here to your existing template to strengthen it.

Step 1: Define the Ideal Job Candidate and Requirements for Success

The first step in creating an effective interview template is defining job requirements, including the role, responsibilities and necessary skills that candidates need to be successful. By clearly understanding what the job entails and what success looks like in the role, the hiring manager can tailor their interview templates to focus on the most relevant aspects. Whether it’s technical expertise, leadership abilities or problem-solving skills, pinpointing these competencies early on guides the development of targeted interview questions, eliciting responses that reveal a candidate’s capabilities and fit for the position.

Here’s an example to help you get started:

Job title and department: Specify the department or team.
Reports to: Title of the person to whom the role reports.
Location: Work location (e.g., remote, office location).
Job summary: Provide a brief overview of the role, its purpose and key objectives.
Key Responsibilities: List the main tasks and duties associated with the role. Use bullet points for clarity.
Required Qualifications (education, experience, skills, certifications): Specify the educational background needed (Bachelor’s degree, MBA); Detail the years of experience and the type of work experience required; outline the essential skills and competencies and any necessary certifications or licenses.

Step 2: Develop Questions

The most important part of the interview process is the questions. Depending on the role, questions can be vastly different. To keep this as a general guide, we’ll outline five types of questions that work well in just about every scenario, and it’ll be up to the hiring manager to tweak them as they see fit for their particular job offer.

Additionally, incorporating questions based on the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) helps interviewers get detailed and actionable insights into a candidate’s past experiences and behaviors.

Behavioral Questions Examples

Tell me about a time when you had to work under a tight deadline. How did you manage your time and priorities to ensure you met the deadline?
Describe a situation where you had a conflict with a coworker. How did you handle it and what was the outcome?

Role-Specific Questions Examples

For a software developer role: Can you walk me through a project where you implemented a new feature? What technologies did you use and what challenges did you face?
For a marketing manager role: How do you approach developing a new marketing campaign? Can you provide an example of a successful campaign you led?

Problem-Solving Questions Examples

Imagine you are given a task with incomplete information. How would you go about gathering the necessary information and completing the task?
You are facing a significant drop in team productivity. What steps would you take to identify the root cause and address the issue?

Cultural Fit Questions Examples

Can you describe an ideal work environment for you? How do you ensure you contribute to creating such an environment?
How do you handle feedback, both positive and negative? Can you give an example of how you have implemented feedback in the past?

Candidate Questions Examples

What are you looking for in your next role, and why do you think our company would be a good fit for you?
Do you have any questions about our company culture, team structure or the day-to-day responsibilities of this role?

Step 3: Create an Evaluation Form

Creating an evaluation form with a rating scale and sections for detailed notes helps HR professionals or whoever is conducting the interview quickly and easily apply ratings to each competency or skill or each candidate.

This allows interviewers to systematically assess each candidate’s responses and qualifications, making it easier to compare candidates objectively later on. Here’s what this section of the template should include:

A rating scale (e.g., 1-5) for each competency and skill
Sections to jot down strengths, weaknesses and overall impressions
Space for interviewers to write additional detailed notes and observations

Step 4: Review and Finalize the Interview Form

The final step includes reviewing and finalizing the template, ideally with stakeholder feedback. This collaborative approach ensures that the interview template is robust, comprehensive, and tailored to the specific needs of the role and the company.

Once ready, take the template for a test drive and use it for one or two interviews. Afterward, consider how it went and make any necessary adjustments to fine-tune the template to your liking.

Go One Step Further Than a Template with ApplicantStack

Go a step further with ApplicantStack. While interview templates are invaluable tools for recruiting, they can leave a lot to be desired—especially when it comes to tracking and communicating with job candidates.

ApplicantStack allows HR professionals to take control of their hiring process and automate tedious, manual tasks where possible. Streamline candidate communication and put more focus on the candidate experience. Amplify job postings, get more applicants and keep everything organized—all in one platform.

Once you’ve found the right candidate (hooray!), enjoy a suite of onboarding tools that facilitate a seamless transition from candidate to employee.

Experience how ApplicantStack can transform your hiring process. Start a free trial today.

Allie Blackham

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