How can you tailor interview questions for diverse candidates?

1 Why diversity matters

Diversity is not only a moral and legal obligation, but also a competitive advantage. Hiring diverse candidates can help you access new markets, improve innovation, and enhance team performance. However, diversity is not only about demographics, but also about diversity of thought, experience, and perspective. To attract and retain diverse talent, you need to create a culture of belonging and respect, where everyone feels valued and heard.

2 How to avoid bias

Bias is an unconscious tendency to favor or reject certain groups or individuals based on stereotypes, assumptions, or preferences. This can have a negative impact on hiring decisions, as well as the candidate experience and employer brand. To reduce bias, it's important to be aware of your own blind spots and prejudices. A structured interview process with job-related criteria and competencies can help. Additionally, using objective and standardized assessment tools such as tests, simulations, or portfolios can measure the candidates' skills and abilities. A diverse and trained interview panel is also beneficial, as it involves people from different backgrounds, roles, and perspectives. Finally, using inclusive language and avoiding jargon, acronyms, or idioms that may confuse candidates from different cultures or backgrounds is important.

3 How to adapt your questions

When conducting interviews, you should use a consistent and fair process, while also tailoring your questions to elicit more information from diverse candidates. This could include open-ended and behavioral questions, which invite the interviewee to share stories, examples, and opinions. Additionally, you should ask culture-fit questions to assess how the candidate aligns with your organizational values, mission, and vision. Diversity-related questions can be used to explore how they approach diversity, inclusion, and belonging in their work environment. Finally, growth-oriented questions can be asked to evaluate how the candidate learns from their experiences and adapts to change and uncertainty.

4 How to listen actively

Tailoring your questions is not enough if you don't actively and attentively listen to the candidates' responses. Active listening is a skill that involves paying attention, showing interest, asking follow-up questions, and summarizing or paraphrasing what you heard. This can help you build rapport and trust with the candidates, understand their motivations and goals, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and avoid misunderstandings or miscommunications. It can also help you determine if the candidate is a good fit for your organization and role, and how they can contribute to your team.

5 How to evaluate your questions

After the interview, you should evaluate your questions and their effectiveness by reviewing the candidates' answers and ratings in comparison to job requirements and competencies. Additionally, you should solicit feedback from the candidates and the interview panel in order to identify what worked well and what could be improved. Furthermore, analyzing the results and outcomes of your hiring process can help you measure the diversity and quality of your talent pool and hires. Finally, updating and refining your questions and process based on best practices and lessons learned is essential.