Interviewing

Planning is essential for a seamless and efficient interview process, which is imperative for providing an exceptional candidate experience that is as fair as possible.

Forming interview teams

Forming a well-rounded and informed interview team is imperative in getting a well-rounded assessment of candidates. Consider reviewing this guide for leading an interview process that supports fairness.

Reviewing candidates

Hiring managers or HR personnel can export resume books and candidate application lists in Taleo to review application materials.

Regardless of the hiring process stage (e.g., resume review, interviewing), it's important to assess candidate competencies related to the job duties. We suggest using a numerical rating chart with competencies to ensure the candidates' assessment is fair. 

Interviewing resources

During the interview, you will evaluate information about the candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, past work experience, and motivational factors to determine the best-qualified candidate.

Guides for managers

Review the following guides for more details about managing an effective interview process:

• Interviewing best practices for hiring managers
• Legal considerations for conducting interviews
• STAR Method interview guide
• Managing bias in hiring quick reference guide

Competencies & interview questions

Define the core competencies by determining the hard and soft skills the candidate needs to have to be successful in the position. As a start, review Stanford’s core competencies and consider which to incorporate, in addition to competencies for your department and the position itself. Competency-based interviews help to provide more objectivity to the interview process by probing for specific job-related examples and greater clarity into the skills and abilities candidates may bring to the position. Once you have determined the competencies, there are many online resources to help create your behavioral interview questions to effectively evaluate candidates against these competencies.

How to use the interview question library (IQL)

Visit the IQL to search for questions to use with candidates. Competency-based interviews help to provide more objectivity to the interview process by probing for specific job-related examples and greater clarity into the skills and abilities candidates may bring to the position. The IQL is a compilation of competency-based questions sourced and reviewed over time, including questions from external resources as well as recruiters and managers at Stanford. New questions can be submitted, and the library is a "living" resource, which means the questions will be updated on a continuing basis.

Visit the interview question library

Access to the library: Please note the following details about access to the IQL.

• All non-academic managers with at least one direct report and HR professionals with roles in the Human Resources Services job family should have access to the IQL.
• Library access is not yet provisioned to schools and units receiving Talent Acquisition Center of Expertise recruiting services (Graduate School of Business, School of Engineering, Vice Provost and Dean of Research, Vice Provost for Student Affairs, School of Humanities & Sciences).
• If a non-academic people manager, an HR professional, or an individual staff contributor from any school or unit (including schools and units receiving recruiting support from the Talent Acquisition Center of Expertise) would like access and they were not already provisioned access, they will be able to submit an access request for themselves as well as on behalf of other staff members via a form. If you were not provisioned access to the IQL and would like to request access, please complete this form.
• If a team member from a school/unit receiving recruiting support from the Talent Acquisition Center of Expertise is actively working with a recruiter on a requisition, they are asked to refrain from using the IQL until the tool has been updated to include the candidate interview evaluation component. 

System job aids

For assistance navigating the IQL, please reference the following job aids (Google Drive).

• How to look up and suggest a question
• Guidance on interview question template functionality
• Guidance on ad hoc question functionality

Should you encounter issues with the IQL or want to provide feedback, please complete this form.

Additional interviewing resources

Review these tools and guidelines to help you throughout the process:

• Download this sample email confirmation and agenda for a candidate, and include our benefits highlights flier (for benefits-eligible positions).
• Consider sharing the Faculty Staff Housing website with candidates who may be interested in housing resources.