Minimizing ‘surprise’ in interviews

Give candidates your questions BEFORE the interview.

All of your questions? Not necessarily.

If most of your interview loop consists of "tell me about a time" questions that are a surprise to candidates, you might be biasing toward hires who can give detailed, articulate impromptu answers. Or who happen to have matching case studies on hand.

The best teams are comprised of impromptu aces but also those who contemplate the question or topic and follow up with a great response by email, slack, or in the next meeting.

Often the most ineffective business meetings are ones where participants aren't given the agenda or a pre-read in advance. Should interviews be any different? Sure, most biz meetings have hard questions that weren't expected, so include some of these in your interviews.

But the entire loop a surprise? We're clinging to old methods here.