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How to conduct a good interview: a step-by-step guide to hiring top candidates

Addison Group
Client conducting an interview with a candidate using Addison Group's tips

Ever hired someone who was charming in the interview but a nightmare on the job? You’re not alone. That costly mistake often happens when we rely on ‘gut feel’ instead of a smart process, but a great interview is a skill you can learn.

Your preparation starts by pinpointing the three to five non-negotiable skills for the role. Instead of getting lost in a long job description, focus on the absolute essentials. For a Customer Service Representative, this might be problem-solving, patience, and clear communication.

A consistent process is key to fair comparison. This is why a structured approach, asking all candidates the same core questions, is essential to truly assess cultural fit beyond just personality.

Here we share three steps on how to conduct a good interview.

Step 1: Prepare for the interview

Before you meet a candidate, complete this checklist to prepare for an interview that gets results:

  1. Define three to five core skills.
  2. Write down your most pressing questions.
  3. Find a quiet, private room.

Step 2: Ask questions that reveal real behavior, not rehearsed answers

Ever feel like you’re hearing the same rehearsed answers over and over? Questions like “Are you a team player?” will almost always get a simple “yes,” but that tells you nothing about how someone behaves when things get difficult. To make a smart hire, you need to get proven examples that they can do the job.

The best interview techniques rely on a simple principle: past performance is the best predictor of future performance. This is where behavioral questions come in. Instead of asking a candidate how they would handle a situation, you ask for a specific story about how they did handle one. This simple switch is the key to unlocking authentic answers.

Your magic phrase is, “Tell me about a time when…” This formula transforms vague questions into powerful requests for evidence. Here are a few behavioral interview questions examples:

  • Instead of: “How do you handle stress?”
  • Ask: “Describe a time you were under a lot of pressure. How did you get through it?”
  • Instead of: “Are you a team player?”
  • Ask: “Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker. What happened?”

Using this method moves you from being a judge of charisma to an evaluator of competence. You’re gathering facts, not just a “gut feeling.” While knowing what good questions to ask a potential employee is crucial, it’s just as important to know which questions to avoid.

Step 3: Evaluate candidates fairly using a simple scorecard

After a few interviews, your notes can feel like a jumble of facts and feelings. You might find yourself leaning toward the person you “liked” the most, but likability doesn’t always equal capability. To make a smart choice, you need a way to compare candidates based on evidence, not just gut feeling. This is where a simple interview scorecard becomes your most powerful tool.

Creating your scorecard is easy. Take the three to five core skills you identified before the interview and list them out. For each skill, give the candidate a score from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) based on the evidence from their answers. This turns your scattered notes into structured data, allowing you to see at a glance where each person shines.

So how do you know if an answer is a “2” or a “5”? A strong answer is a story, not just a claim. Listen for three key parts:

  1. Did they clearly describe a specific situation they faced?
  2. Did they explain the exact actions they took?
  3. And crucially, what was the positive result of their actions?

A vague answer gets a low score, while a detailed story with a clear outcome earns a high one.

Using this method allows you to compare candidates with the factors that truly matter for the job. It moves your decision from a subjective guess to an objective choice, giving you the confidence that you’re not just hiring a good interviewee, but a future top performer.

Your final decision: turning a good interview into a great hire

Before, you might have relied on gut feeling to fill an open role. Now you possess a clear, repeatable process to see past interview charm and identify true capability. You’ve moved from simply having a conversation to gathering evidence.

This simple loop—defining key skills before, asking for real examples during, and scoring evidence after—is your best defense against a bad hire. Complete the process with a timely post-interview follow-up; this professionalism is key to creating a positive candidate experience for everyone involved.

You no longer have to guess who can do the work. By focusing on proof over personality, you’ve turned a stressful task into a strategic tool for building a stronger team. You now have the framework for how to hire with clarity and confidence.

Need help hiring for your team? Addison Group can help. For more than 20 years, our expert recruiters have focused on quality over quotas. Let’s talk about how we can find you talent that’s the right fit, not just what’s available. 

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