Traditional one-on-one interviews allow for an intimate discussion to take place between recruiters and candidates. However, any hire that requires input from a range of people can be a time-consuming process, a luxury employers can’t always afford in a competitive environment for attracting talent.
A long hiring process increases the chances of candidates accepting an offer from elsewhere. With convoluted hiring testing the patience of even the most dedicated candidates, panel interviews can be an invaluable addition to an employer’s arsenal.
In this article, we explore panel interviews, discussing their advantages and drawbacks, how to conduct them, and best practices to ensure they run smoothly and effectively.
What is a panel interview?
A panel interview is a structured formal interview process that involves two or more interviewers (or panelists) and one applicant. A panel can be made up of representatives of different departments or may include the key stakeholders from one department, depending on the role you’re hiring for.
Advantages of panel interviews
Panel interviewing can allow employers and recruiters to obtain a broader view of a candidate’s suitability for a role. There are numerous advantages that can be leveraged by implementing panel interviews, including:
Reduce the impact of bias: Single-interviewer formats can magnify unconscious biases, leading to unfair assessments and potential discrimination that harms your reputation and causes you to overlook the best talent. A diverse panel interview minimises these risks by involving people from various backgrounds.
Go deeper with questioning: Panel interviews allow for a more comprehensive evaluation, as each panelist brings a unique perspective. This setup enables detailed questioning, with each person focusing on different aspects of the role. creating a broader assessment. Such diversity in questioning helps uncover a candidate’s suitability for the position and provides a richer understanding of their capabilities.
Showcasing company culture: Panel interviews offer candidates a first-hand look at your company culture. This format provides a glimpse into your workplace dynamics, allowing candidates to see how panelists interact and work together. This can help them gauge the level of teamwork and shared values within your organisation, and make it easier for them to decide if they want to join your team.
Assessing candidates in a group setting: Panel interviews can show you how candidates communicate, engage with different stakeholders, and respond to questions from various parts of the business. This is a valuable opportunity to assess their teamwork, communication skills, and ability to manage group dynamics, providing a clear picture of whether a candidate can navigate the collaborative environment within your organisation.
Streamlining interview stages: Panel interviews can streamline the hiring process by allowing key stakeholders to meet the candidate simultaneously. This eliminates the need for multiple individual interviews, saving time and resources. It also accelerates the process by facilitating quicker feedback and decision-making, ensuring that all key decision-makers are aligned, leading to more efficient hiring decisions.
How to conduct a successful panel interview
Once you’ve decided whether a panel interview is the best option for your vacancy, it’s time to look at the planning and organisation of your interview to ensure its success. Let’s look at how to conduct a panel interview in more detail, including the steps to take before, during, and after your interview.
Before the interview
Planning is possibly the most important stage in panel interviewing. A well-planned interview doesn’t just ensure everyone is in the right place at the right time, but it gives your organisation a chance to impress candidates, and similarly, gives candidates the best chance of impressing you.
These steps outline how you can get started with panel interviewing:
Select and prepare the setting: Venue and setting are an integral part of the interview setup. The right environment is vital to set the tone and ensure both panelists and candidates are comfortable and focused.
The first decision is whether you plan to interview in person or online. Video interviewing has much more commonplace in recent years, and can be an effective way to remove some of the pressure around the traditional panel interview.
If you choose to conduct interviews in person, consider the space you plan to use. Factors such as lighting, acoustics, and proximity to others in the room are all important for creating the right atmosphere for the interview.
Select the interview panel members: As already mentioned, you may want to choose a panel from across departments in your organisation, or you may want to build it mainly around representatives from the team the candidate is hoping to join.
The panel should be representative of your organisation and bring a diverse mixture of people from different backgrounds, experiences, and seniority levels.
A panel would typically include the following:
* Primary stakeholders (representatives of senior management)
* Team leaders or managers (who could be the direct line manager of the candidate, or work closely alongside them)
* HR representatives
The number of people on a panel interview will vary based on the company and the role, but typically involves who to five people.
Decide on a consistent rating system: Interview rating scales can be very helpful in deciding the right candidate when you’ve had several strong contenders for the role. Panelists and hiring managers can use such scales to quickly and objectively measure a candidate’s suitability for the role, more clearly spotting strengths and weaknesses between candidates.
For example, an effective rating system for panel interviews may include the following:
* Candidate responses to specific interview questions
* Candidate’s expression of their job-related competencies
* Overall interview score and performance
Prepare the interview panel: Once each member of the panel has been confirmed, it’s crucial to ensure that they are prepared for the interview. This includes ensuring:
* The interview has a schedule and structure
* Everyone knows their role, i.e. note taker, timekeeper, or lead interviewer
* Panelists have access to candidates’ CVs and applications, and the job description
* An agreed-upon approach for candidate rating
Plan questions in advance: All the team members sitting on the panel should have their own set of questions prepared in advance. Sticking to these agreed-upon questions will help to ensure that the interview runs smoothly, objectively, and on time.
Prepare the candidate: It’s important to give candidates time to prepare for a panel interview. This requires providing the right information to interviewees in advance, including an idea of the structure of the interview and the sort of questions that can be expected.
Ensure that candidates know that they’ll be interviewed by multiple people, and if relevant, share information on the panelists joining the session. This gives candidates the opportunity to do their research and be fully prepared for the interview.
During the interview
Once the interview itself is in progress, the role of the interviewers is to give candidates the chance to answer questions to the best of their ability. In this section, we have outlined the steps required to do just that.
Introduce the panel members: Start the interview by ensuring each panel is properly introduced and give the candidates time to familiarise themselves with the multiple decision-makers conducting the interview.
Each interviewer can introduce themselves in the way they believe most appropriate, covering their name, job title, and their responsibilities in relation to the wider organisation. You can also use this stage to let the candidate know how the interview will work, the order of questions, and who will be asking what and when.
Follow the prepared structure for questioning: Prior to the interview, you should have already set planned questions for each panelist, and the introduction gave you a chance to let the candidate know the order of questioning. Some panelists may be more focused on other tasks such as timekeeping or note-taking, so it is vital the right people ask the planned questions to keep the interview on track and allow the candidate to answer fully.
Preparing questions beforehand should prevent the interview from veering off in an unintended direction, but panelists should still avoid asking follow-up questions unless fully relevant.
Actively listen to all candidate responses: Do not expect an instant and perfect answer to every question. Candidates may need time to process and answer each question, and it is crucial panelists actively listen and engage with the candidates as they respond. Ensure the candidate feels comfortable enough to take the time they need to answer.
After the interview
Once the interview is over, it’s time for the panel to bring together their thoughts and make a final hiring decision based on the performance of multiple candidates.
Discuss overall thoughts and opinions as a panel: Share your thoughts and opinions as a group, assessing each candidate’s strengths and suitability for the role. Take the time to have a group discussion where everyone can share their thoughts and opinions on the candidates, referring back to their notes from the interview.
Using your predetermined scorecard or rating system is vital to ensure this discussion does not become purely based on opinions and remains rooted in the core competencies required from the ideal candidate.
Work together to make a decision: Use the information you have to make a final decision on the best person for the role. This may mean getting a simple yes or no from each panelist, but it should also involve a full assessment of the ratings to judge whether the scorecards match the panel’s preferences. The final hiring decision should be made by consensus based on the ratings each candidate received.
Panel interview questions
There are many different interview questions you can pose to candidates, and it’s vital to include a mix to allow candidates to show you their potential. Below we’ve delved into some of the question types you should consider when carrying out panel interviews.
Experience-related questions: These questions revolve around the skills and competencies a candidate can bring to the table based on their work experience to data. These questions often refer back to information provided on a candidate’s CV, for example:
* How does your prior experience prepare you for this job?
* How do you think your experience matches the needs of the role?
Technical questions: These questions drill down into the technical aspects of a role and a candidate’s experience in this area, with questions such as:
* How do you meet the key competencies for this job?
* What do you do to maintain your technical certifications?
Interpersonal questions: Interpersonal questions require candidates to demonstrate their soft skills, which can be vital for communicating effectively in the workplace. These questions may include:
* Can you share an example of effective teamwork from your experience?
* How do you handle criticism in the workplace?
Hypothetical questions: You may post hypothetical questions to a candidate to gauge how they would react in different environments and situations, such as:
* What would you do if you noticed a morale issue within your team?
* How would you respond if a project you managed didn’t achieve its goals?
Best practices for conducting panel interviews
Above we’ve laid out the key steps required to conduct effective panel interviews, as well as some of the questions you can ask jobseekers to get the most out of the interview. However, there are additional best practices you can implement to take panel interviews to the next level, including:
* Strict time-keeping: Punctuality should be expected from panelists as much as candidates. You need to set the tone and be an example for candidates. You need to set the tone and be an example for candidates, and starting promptly is part of this. Starting late can infer to candidates that your company is disorganised or doesn’t value the role they are applying for.
* Taking steps to limit bias: Consider the language you plan to use to describe the job and its responsibilities in the interview. Ensure you bring together a diverse panel of interviewers and stick to pre-planned questions that allow for an objective assessment of the candidate’s skills.
* Comprehensive note-taking: It is advisable to have a designated note-taker to keep track of all discussions during a panel interview. However, panelists can also take their own notes to ensure that a candidate’s responses are accurately recorded, and important points aren’t missed.
* Stick to the script: A schedule and script to follow throughout the interview are vital for ensuring all panelists are involved and the necessary questions are asked. It also makes it easier to navigate the interview, ensures important questions aren’t forgotten, and helps keep the interviewing process consistent, objective, and fair.
