Hire with a scorecard, not a gut feeling
Structured interviews, where every candidate gets the same questions and you score their answers against the same criteria, predict job performance better than casual, go-with-your-gut interviews. A well-known 1998 review by Frank Schmidt and John Hunter found structured interviews were noticeably more predictive than unstructured ones, and a 2022 update led by Paul Sackett ranked structured interviews among the strongest predictors of job performance. A simple scorecard can save a small business from a costly hire.
Here's how most small business owners hire.
They post the job. They talk to three or four people. They chat about their background, maybe their hobbies. And they hire the one they "clicked with." Then, three months in, they're on a call with me. "I don't get it. She was great in the interview."
Of course she was. She's great at interviews. That's not the same thing as being great at the job.
What the research says
In 1998, Frank Schmidt and John Hunter pulled together 85 years of research on what predicts how well people will do in a job. Structured interviews came out well ahead of unstructured ones.
In 2022, Paul Sackett and his colleagues took a fresh look at the data. Structured interviews still came out near the very top. Unstructured interviews did much worse than people tend to think.
A structured interview just means:
Every candidate gets the same questions, in the same order.
The questions are tied to what the job actually requires.
You score each answer using the same criteria, right after the interview.
That's it. It's not fancy. It just takes the guesswork out.
Why your gut can get it wrong
In a casual conversation, you're mostly measuring how much you like someone. Are they warm? Funny? Easy to talk to? Do they remind you of you? Those things feel important in the moment. But they don't tell you if someone will hit deadlines, handle a frustrated client, or keep your books straight.
And your first impression starts coloring everything. Once you like someone, you start hearing every answer as a good one.
A simple scorecard for small businesses
Write down what the job actually needs. Three to five things. "Responds to clients within one business day." "Comfortable with Canva and Notion." "Can manage a calendar with lots of moving parts." This is the same clarity I talk about in Your team can't hit a target you haven't named.
Write one or two questions for each. Ask about real past behavior. "Tell me about a time a client was upset with you. What did you do?" beats "How do you handle stress?"
Ask everyone the same questions. Same order. Same wording.
Score each answer from 1 to 5 right away. Before you talk to anyone else. Before you compare.
Add a small paid test if you can. Have them do a short version of the real work. An hour of real work tells you more than an hour of chatting.
What it looks like
A good friend of mine was hiring a virtual assistant. Her first two hires hadn't worked out, and both times, she'd hired on gut feeling.
The third time, she wrote a scorecard and gave every finalist a small paid test: organize a messy inbox and draft three replies. The candidate she liked most in conversation scored in the middle. A quieter candidate nailed the test.
She hired the quiet one. Almost a year later, they are still working together, and my friend can’t image her business without her.
If you're thinking about bringing someone on, start with Buy back your time to figure out what to hand off. Then use the scorecard to hire for it.
If you want help planning your first hire and following through on it, let's talk.
Frequently asked questions
What is a structured interview?
A structured interview asks every candidate the same job-related questions in the same order and scores each answer against the same criteria.
Are structured interviews better than unstructured interviews?
Yes. Research reviews by Schmidt and Hunter (1998) and Sackett and colleagues (2022) found structured interviews predict job performance better than unstructured interviews.
How should a small business owner interview candidates?
List what the job needs, write questions about past behavior for each, ask every candidate the same questions, score answers right away, and add a short paid work test if possible.
Sources: Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262–274. · Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2022). Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040–2068.
