The Science of Interviewing: How to Hire the Right People

Hiring mistakes are rarely obvious in the moment. They reveal themselves months later in missed deadlines and performance issues that “no one saw coming.” Yet in many cases, the warning signs were there from the start.

Behavioral cues offer insight into how someone will show up at work. At the same time, interviews are not neutral assessments. How you behave as an interviewer communicates volumes about what it is actually like to work inside your organization.

Small details matter more than most hiring teams realize: how structured the process feels, how respectful the interaction is, how consistent communication remains before and after the interview. These signals shape not only how candidates perform, but whether they want the job at all.

Know Your Culture Before You Try to Hire for It

Before you can assess whether a candidate fits your culture, experts recommend that you clarify what that culture actually is.

Research shows that candidates begin forming judgments about organizational fit well before the interview stage. Early impressions are shaped by: your website and company branding, online reviews or media coverage, prior exposure to your company or team, and the tone and responsiveness of initial outreach

By the time a candidate walks into an interview, they are already differentiating you from other organizations and forming a preliminary preference. As the recruitment process continues, those perceptions either strengthen or weaken based on what they experience next.

For example, a candidate may be drawn to your company because your website emphasizes collaboration and autonomy. But if interview scheduling and communication is chaotic or interviewers send mixed messages, perceived fit can quickly decline. Before you interview, ask yourself:

• What do candidates actually experience when interacting with us
• Which behaviors are rewarded internally
• Where might our messaging and our reality diverge

Fit is not decided in a single moment. It develops across the recruitment process. When your signals are consistent and aligned, candidates who truly fit your culture become more committed, and those who do not are more likely to self-select out.

Use Structure to Reduce Bias in Interviews

Unstructured interviews invite bias. Research found that structured interviews, those that use consistent questions and predefined scoring criteria, lead to better hiring decisions and fairer outcomes.

In practice, this means deciding in advance what you want to learn and evaluating every candidate against the same criteria.

How to create an effective structure:

• Ask the same core questions of every candidate, which allows for meaningful comparison
• Emphasize past behavior over hypotheticals, since descriptions of real experience are harder to fake and more predictive of future performance
• Rate responses immediately and separately, rather than forming a global impression at the end of the interview
• Use clear scoring standards, so interviewers evaluate observable behavior instead of general “fit”

Structured interviews reduce biased differences in ratings while maintaining or improving decision quality. In other words, structure helps interviewers see candidates more clearly, not less clearly.

The goal is to prevent irrelevant signals from crowding out meaningful ones. When structure is in place, interviewers spend less time reacting to impressions and more time evaluating evidence.

Communicate Clearly Before and After the Interview

The interview experience shapes how candidates view your organization, often more than compensation or title. Surveys show that the interview itself is the most influential stage in forming employer impressions, and yet, communication breakdowns are common. Nearly 75% of candidates say they received no follow

-up after an interview, damaging their impression of the company. Over two-thirds of candidates expect at least a confirmation email after applying, however, only 46% of companies send one.

Silence is not neutral. Candidates interpret it as disorganization or lack of respect.

Put yourself in the candidate’s position. They interview, invest time preparing, and hear nothing for days or weeks. Even if an offer eventually comes, trust has already taken a hit. Many candidates disengage or accept competing offers long before a decision is finalized.

The same survey found that three quarters of candidates would accept a salary about 5 percent lower if the hiring process left them with a positive impression. If you want to keep strong candidates engaged, do the following:

• Acknowledge applications and interviews promptly, even with a brief automated message
• Set a clear decision timeline and update candidates when that timeline changes
• Inform candidates when you are not moving forward with them

Watch Behavior, Not Just Words

Most candidates try to impress. Some exaggerate. Others lie. Behavioral research shows that deception in interviews often appears in subtle patterns rather than obvious tells. Compared to honest candidates, deceptive interviewees tend to make more verbal errors, such as stumbles or repetitions, fill silence quickly rather than pausing naturally, appear unusually calm, sometimes calmer than honest candidates.

Watch out for these signals. They do not prove deception. But taken together, they can indicate increased cognitive load or strategic self-presentation. Effective interviewers stay curious rather than confrontational and look for clusters of behavior rather than single cues.

Shape the Interview Experience With Intentional Messaging

Research shows that when interviewers clearly communicate the organization’s strengths and express encouragement toward candidates, applicants leave with higher confidence and a more positive emotional impression.

First, be deliberate in how you present the organization. This works best when examples are concrete rather than promotional.

• Point to specific strengths of the role or team. For example, instead of saying “We have great teams,” say “This team works in tight project cycles, and junior staff regularly present directly to leadership.”
• Explain how decisions are made or success is rewarded. Rather than “We value initiative,” say “People who take ownership of problems are often pulled into higher-visibility projects”
• Avoid vague claims like “great culture” without evidence. If you cannot point to a behavior, process, or outcome that supports the claim, candidates are likely to discount it entirely.

Second, use brief encouragement to support candidate confidence. Acknowledging strong answers increases applicants’ confidence and positive affect, without compromising evaluation.

• Use neutral affirmations such as “That’s helpful” or “Good example.”
• Maintain attentive posture and visible engagement. Leaning in slightly, nodding, or maintaining steady eye contact signals interest and respect.
• Avoid evaluative statements about outcomes. Comments like “That’s exactly what we’re looking for” may feel encouraging, but they blur the line between assessment and reassurance.

Be Aware of Bias Triggered by First Impressions

A survey found that hiring professionals unconsciously link color with personality:

• Blue is often read as trustworthy and collaborative, which can lead interviewers to assume stronger teamwork skills before evidence is presented.
• Gray tends to signal reliability and stability, sometimes causing candidates to be seen as safer or more dependable than their experience alone would suggest.
• Black is associated with authority and leadership, but in some contexts can also be interpreted as aggressive or domineering.
• Orange is frequently perceived as unprofessional, which can negatively bias impressions before the interview even begins.
• Red conveys boldness and confidence, but may also trigger assumptions about dominance or confrontational behavior.

These snap judgments operate quietly but affect how you assess confidence, professionalism, and fit.

Use Open Posture to Improve Attention and Accuracy

Posture shapes perception in both directions. Research suggests that interviewers who adopt open postures process information more accurately and are better at detecting behavioral cues than those who sit closed off.

An open posture means:

• Sitting with your arms uncrossed
• Keeping your legs uncrossed or neutrally positioned
• Facing the candidate directly rather than angling away
• Maintaining an upright but relaxed torso
• Avoiding barriers like laptops, folders, or crossed hands between you and the candidate

By contrast, a closed posture includes crossed arms, crossed legs, leaning away, or hunching over a desk.

Open posture appears to prime engagement and reduce distraction. Interviewers in open positions focus less on irrelevant cues and more on meaningful behavior. This effect is not about appearing friendly. It is about how information is processed.

The Next Steps

Candidates are signaling how they handle pressure, how they think, and how they regulate themselves in real time. Interviewers are signaling what they reward, what they tolerate, and what it feels like to work inside the culture. When you know how to read those signals accurately, you make better hiring decisions.

This is the core of Pamela Meyer’s work. As the author of Liespotting and a leading expert on deception detection and behavioral analysis, Pamela teaches professionals how to move beyond gut instinct and into disciplined observation. Her training focuses on the skills like, identifying baseline behavior, noticing meaningful deviations, recognizing patterns of impression management, and using expert questioning to surface clearer, more reliable information.

If you want to sharpen these skills, Pamela Meyer’s courses on deception detection, expert questions, and interviewing provide practical, research-driven tools you can apply immediately. You will ask better questions, reduce bias, and spot credibility gaps earlier. Most importantly, you will learn how to evaluate candidates based on behavioral evidence, not just polished answers.

To continue building these skills, explore Proven Ways to Detect Lies on a Résumé and learn how behavioral science can sharpen your next hiring decision.