How to interview candidates: a fair, fast process for small employers

7 minute read · Updated 2026-08-20

Knowing how to interview candidates properly is worth more to a small employer than almost any other hiring skill. An unstructured chat tells you who is comfortable talking to strangers, which is rarely the job you are filling. A structured interview, even a short one, gives you comparable evidence, defensible decisions and a much better chance that the person you appoint is still there in a year. It also takes less of your time, not more.

How to interview candidates: prepare before anyone walks in

Start from the job, not from the CVs. Write down the five or six things the person must be able to do, separating the essentials from the useful extras. Those become your criteria, and everything else in the process hangs off them.

Decide who is on the panel. Two people is usually right: the line manager and one other. One person alone makes bias harder to catch.
Write the questions once and ask all candidates the same core set, adding follow ups as needed.
Agree a simple scoring scale in advance, such as one to four against each criterion, with a note of what a good answer contains.
Book enough time. Forty five minutes for most roles, thirty for high volume hourly positions.
Tell candidates in advance what the format is, how long it will take, whether there is a practical task, and who they will meet. It costs nothing and improves the answers you get.

Ask questions that produce evidence

The most useful interview questions ask for something that has already happened. Instead of are you good under pressure, ask tell me about the busiest shift you have worked and what you did to get through it. Then probe: what exactly was your part, what went wrong, what would you do differently.

Mix three types. Past behaviour questions give you evidence. Short technical or practical questions test the knowledge the job needs, whether that is reading a drawing, calculating a margin, or explaining a safe manual handling technique. Situational questions, framed as a realistic scenario from your workplace, show judgement.

Then talk less. A rough guide is that the candidate should speak for three quarters of the interview. Panels that spend twenty minutes describing the company learn nothing and then wonder why every candidate seemed suitable.

The questions you must not ask

Under the Equality Act 2010 you must not discriminate because of a protected characteristic, which includes age, sex, race, religion or belief, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. In practice that rules out a familiar set of questions.

Do not ask about plans to have children, childcare arrangements, or marital status. If the role has genuine availability requirements, ask directly whether the candidate can work the advertised shifts.
Do not ask about health, disability or sickness absence before making an offer, other than in the limited circumstances the Act allows, such as establishing whether a reasonable adjustment is needed for the interview itself or checking an ability that is intrinsic to the job.
Do not ask about age, or use proxies such as when someone left school.
Do not ask about nationality or where someone is from. Ask every candidate the same question about whether they have the right to work in the UK, and carry out the same document or share code check on the person you appoint.
Only ask about criminal records where the role justifies it, and follow the rules on filtering and the correct level of DBS check.

Keep your notes factual and relevant, score against the criteria, and hold the records securely for a limited period. Notes are disclosable, so write nothing you would not want read back to you.

Score, decide and record

Score independently before you discuss, then compare. Where the panel disagrees, go back to what the candidate actually said rather than to the impression they left. Beware the two classic traps: appointing the person most like you, and letting one strong answer colour everything else.

If nobody meets the essentials, do not appoint the least bad option. Re-advertise, widen the criteria that were not truly essential, or consider training an applicant with the right attitude, particularly through an apprenticeship. A bad appointment in a small team costs far more than another fortnight of advertising, and our guide to writing a job advert covers how to get a stronger field next time.

Turn a good interview into an accepted offer

Move quickly. Strong candidates in most UK sectors are gone within a fortnight. Call rather than email, confirm the offer in writing with the pay, hours, start date and any conditions, and remember that every employee and worker must receive a written statement of their main terms on or before their first day.

State clearly what the offer depends on: satisfactory references, a right to work check, and where relevant a DBS check, professional registration or a medical questionnaire. Pay must meet at least the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage for the person's age. Then keep in touch between offer and start date, particularly if they are working a long notice period, because that is when counter offers arrive. The screening side of this is covered in our guide to shortlisting and right to work checks.

Next step: write your criteria and your question set before you shortlist, then post your vacancy and check the pricing for the listing you need.