Every Hiring Manager Interviews Differently, and Why That’s a Problem

The same role, five different interviews

One interviewer follows the guide, another improvises, a third barely takes notes, a fourth labels everyone “maybe,” and a fifth goes with instinct. If every interviewer does their own thing, you don’t have an interview process, you have a collection of conversations that produce inconsistent results, decisions and outcomes.

Candidates feel this too. When interviews lack structure, it becomes clear that their chances hinge more on luck or rapport with the interviewer, rather than on evidence of their skills or capability.

Why inconsistency is common and costly

Hiring managers bring different backgrounds and confidence levels to interviewing. Without structure, people default to gut feel and adhoc prompts that drift from role requirements.

Those in HR responsible for talent acquisition can’t sit in every interview, which makes inconsistency hard to spot and even harder to coach. However the damage shows up across fairness, speed, quality of hire, and employer brand, resulting in a measurable cost to the business.

Unstructured inputs lead to shaky outputs

With so many different ways to approach an interview, and a variety of factors influencing outcomes, it is critical to guide interviewers on a stable, structured path otherwise interviewees will suffer from:

• Mixed preparation – some interviewers will likely ‘fly blind’, going into an interview without any prior knowledge of the candidate, resulting in frustration from the interviewee having to repeat themselves, or wasted time going over unnecessary information that has already been collected.
• Different questions – one candidate may be interrogated on their skills and work experience, and another on their culture or team fit. Different interviewers prioritize different things, so recruiters won’t have comparable information to confidently recommend the best person to move forward.
• Uneven scoring – one interviewer may always look favourably on candidates, another may score harshly. When there is no scoring guide, interviewers can’t score consistently and fairly, reverting to gut-feel to decide if a candidate is right for the role.
• Variable feedback – chasing feedback from hiring managers is a common issue, some may be proactive and provided detailed, constructive feedback quickly, others may rely on remembering how an interviewee responded from weeks ago, leading to error and bias creeping in.

Interview outcomes are only as strong as the inputs that interviewers use to speak to candidates. Without structure and guidance, strong candidates may be lost because they met the wrong person at the wrong time.​

Personality within guardrails

Consistency isn’t robotic or dehumanizing; it replaces improvisation with shared anchors: role-relevant questions, objective scoring, and realtime support so interviewers can be themselves but with guardrails.​

With a clear framework, every candidate gets a fair shot, managers feel confident and leaders can compare apples to apples, using data to improve hiring decisions.​ With the addition of structure in the moment through guided prompts, note capture, and calibrated ratings, quality can be maintained during the conversation, not just in pre- and post-interview.

You can’t scale chaos

As hiring grows, interviewing inconsistency becomes a liability that slows decisions, weakens selection, and damages candidate trust. Interview maturity demands a repeatable, structured discipline that can enhances fairness, consistency, and evaluation accuracy.

Want to replace interview chaos with better interviews, better teams, and better outcomes that can scale? Explore our science-backed interviewing solution to level up interviewing across your organization.