Professional rejections. Bad hires. Poor reviews.

Many companies have spent years developing and refining their recruitment processes. There are several rounds of interviews, clearly defined responsibilities, a list of questions and perhaps a take-home assignment. The process looks thorough and professional. But how well a process is organised tells you very little about what the two sides actually learn about each other. Sometimes, shortly after someone is hired, it becomes clear that the same terms had concealed different expectations: “taking ownership” meant having room to shape things to one side, and working through tasks independently to the other. Much of the professional fit is there, yet conflicts still arise in day-to-day work. Rejected candidates complain on platforms such as kununu despite having had friendly conversations.

“There’s only so much time”, “You can only find out what someone is willing to share”, and “The other side came across completely differently in the interview” are the typical responses at this point. All of that may be true. But it does not answer the question of whether the interview was even designed to uncover the things that matter - and whether it left enough room to do so. Many companies consider their process efficient because it is standardised. Yet a standardised process across different roles merely makes interviews comparable, not necessarily insightful. A structured interview becomes an end in itself when completing the prescribed steps matters more than what you learn from them.

A good selection process therefore needs to do more than assess candidates. It needs to allow both sides to make an informed decision about working together. These seven changes can help make selection processes more purposeful, align expectations earlier and ensure candidates are treated more fairly:

1. Adapt screening, drop questions

If you filter CVs purely by buzzwords, sooner or later you will mostly get CVs optimised for that filter. Degrees and grades also make selection easier, but they tell you little about how someone solves problems or works with others day to day. If the interview then consists of walking through the candidate’s career history chronologically, there is barely any time left to explore these aspects.

An unconventional career path and personal interests should be reasons for a CV to make the shortlist, rather than fall victim to a filter at the outset. What matters most is the experience behind the entries. To explore that experience in the interview, everyone involved needs to have read the CV beforehand. Asking candidates to walk through their CV during the interview is simply catching up on preparation that should already have happened - at the expense of your time together.

Both sides want to understand whether the role, ways of working and expectations are a good match. That takes time and flexibility. A certain amount of structure is not the enemy of a good conversation. It becomes a problem when a lively discussion is cut short so that the next question on the interview guide can be ticked off. At that point, a natural conversation turns into an interrogation.

Rather than working through a rigid list of questions, interviewers should cover topic areas with clear learning objectives: preferences in day-to-day work, conflict-resolution skills, quality standards and so on. These topics should leave enough room for follow-up questions and deeper discussion. Comparability does not come from asking everyone the same questions. It comes from assessing the same relevant skills and ways of working in every candidate.

Erik: What I look forward to most are interviews with people who have unconventional CVs. These often turn out to be my most interesting ones; I get to meet someone with real passion I can connect with.

Georg: We use a template for every interview. It contains only the most important aspects we want to cover. I also jot down questions tailored to the candidate, but even those sometimes get dropped (or new ones get added) during the conversation, depending on how the interview develops.

2. Get the right people in the room

Why is a managing director taking part in an interview if they will not be working with the person afterwards? Why is a manager there who has not done the advertised work themselves for years? Hierarchy alone does not qualify anyone to conduct an insightful interview. It does, however, guarantee that you will waste a lot of money and have a harder time finding a date that works for everyone.

Above all, an interview should involve the people who will directly work with the candidate and live that day-to-day reality, not just know about it! They can define which criteria matter for working together - and, in doing so, have a chance to grow and better understand their own needs. At the same time, both sides gain a better basis for deciding whether they can see themselves working together. Every participant should be clear about which role-relevant perspective they bring.

Georg: It is not enough simply to have developers interview other developers. If one interviewer lacks in-depth expertise in the relevant technical area, we make sure the other interviewer has it. Even in non-technical interviews.

Sören: Candidates regularly tell us how much they appreciate speaking to their future colleagues in the interview rather than to the HR department.

3. Make your own assessment

Candidates want to make a good first impression, and so do potential employers. As a result, people give the answers they think the other side wants to hear. If you ask something like “Can you get up to speed with new technologies quickly?”, you have already supplied the answer in the question - and made the answer worthless for any later evaluation.

Concrete situations reveal skills far better than any self-proclaimed quality - and the same applies to how the company presents itself. How people and teams really operate becomes apparent in what they do. There is no getting around discussing real situations and the part each person played in them.
An interview guide can provide direction, but it cannot account for the individual stages of someone’s career. If you want to understand the reality, you need to have an individual conversation.

Georg: Open-ended scenarios with no clear right or wrong answer are particularly interesting, because you can listen to candidates weighing up the pros and cons of different solutions and gain insights into how they think.

Sören: I deliberately ask open-ended questions so that my intentions are not obvious. For example, instead of asking whether someone uses automated tests, I ask what they place particular value on in software development. What they mention, in what order and how quickly often tells me more than any answer to a closed question.

4. Choose assignments with purpose

Artificial, complex assignments can reveal specific skills in candidates. They just should not be mistaken for general proof of how someone will perform in day-to-day work. On the job, people are allowed (and expected) to understand existing processes, use different tools and discuss things with colleagues. If you take those options away from candidates during the interview, you are mainly testing how they perform without them.

If you want to know how someone handles real everyday situations, that is exactly what you should test. Assignments that do not reflect the day-to-day job offer no insight into how the candidate will behave in that job. The question should not be: How difficult can we make the selection process? It should be: What does each individual assignment tell us about working together in the future? And is that insight proportionate to the effort required on both sides?

Assignments that require several hours of preparation at home are even more problematic. They demand candidates’ free time before either side even knows whether they are a good match. Anyone with little free time starts at a disadvantage that says nothing about their suitability for the job. And a convincing presentation of the results on its own proves only that someone can present a solution. How it was developed (alone, with other people or with the help of AI) remains unclear.

A process like this often says more about the company than about the person it wants to hire. Such a company expects candidates to accommodate its needs without having to return the favour, and mistakes that one-sided effort for a thorough recruitment process. Take-home assignments are not a good selection tool; they are disrespectful.

Erik: Companies tend to forget that candidates are also having several conversations in parallel, often while still working at their current jobs. We try to take up as much of candidates’ time as necessary, but as little as possible.

Sören: Instead of the LeetCode problems some companies use, we give candidates tasks that our employees tackle in exactly the same way in their day-to-day work. That lets us assess how we would work together on a human level.

5. Do not forget the person

Whether someone understands their field matters. Whether people can work together matters at least as much. Yet many interviewers ask detailed questions about professional knowledge and surprisingly few about how someone gives feedback, handles disagreement or makes decisions when information is missing. Ultimately, the aim is to hire someone with the right skills whom the team can work well with.

An interview should reveal two things to both sides: 1. what skills or opportunities are on offer, and 2. how work is done. Professional skills can be learned; personalities rarely change. New methods can be introduced, but a company’s culture changes only slowly. Focusing almost exclusively on professional expertise will create conflict sooner or later.

Erik: We have split our interview process into two conversations and take enough time to get to know the person AND their skills.

Georg: If a candidate really stands out as a person but has a gap in their professional skills, we consider whether we can invest additional time in technical training.

6. There is no “maybe”

All the interviews have taken place, the important topics have been discussed and the process is complete. The company needs to fill the role; the candidate may urgently need a job. Some uncertainties remain, but the thought “It’ll work out” is tempting. Yet anyone who simply leaves unanswered questions to the probationary period is not making a decision. They are deferring responsibility at the expense of both sides.

What remains unresolved now can put a strain on working together later: expectations diverge, conflicts arise and productivity falls, both for the new hire and for the existing team. In the worst case, the company’s culture erodes. It is therefore always worth investing the time to follow up. What needs to be clarified so that both sides can feel confident about working together? If that cannot be achieved, an honest “no” is better than a “yes” that already feels wrong. If it is not a clear “yes”, it is a clear “no”.

Erik: We strive to remove every last doubt. A colleague once said, “If it’s not a hell yeah, it’s a hell no.” We still follow that principle today.

Sören: The probationary period does not exist to find out for the first time whether someone is a good fit. That should be established as far as possible during the interview process; otherwise, it costs both sides unnecessary time. The probationary period tests the depth and consistency of what was demonstrated in the interview.

7. Give feedback

If a rejection arrives at all, it often hits candidates hard. Ghosting seems to have become an acceptable practice among companies. The message frequently consists of nothing more than generic wording: "we have decided to go with someone else". What made the difference remains unclear. Anyone who has invested time in interviews, preparation or assignments does not even find out whether professional requirements or differing expectations were the deciding factor.

Clear, timely feedback should be a given. That applies to both sides. Companies should also want to understand why a candidate decides to go elsewhere.
Concerned about legal risks, companies often deliberately keep rejection messages vague. That explains the vagueness, but it does not justify saying nothing at all. Anyone who wants to improve should also be able to understand why their application was unsuccessful. If a company cannot even clearly explain what tipped the balance, the problem is not the feedback but the selection process.

Erik: Once a candidate has had at least one interview with us, we offer a feedback conversation on request. We want to help our candidates improve and develop.

Georg: Although I feel uneasy before every feedback call, the overwhelming majority of these conversations are positive. They usually help people strengthen their profiles, and some even apply to us again later.

Closing thoughts

None of this will prevent all conflict within a company. Nor does it suddenly send ratings on platforms such as kununu through the roof because nobody needs to vent any more. Being human is still part of the job.

Making good use of the time you spend getting to know each other is not about squeezing more questions into an interview. It is about finding out what really matters and creating a positive experience for both sides in what is ultimately a serious situation. This can lead to hires who are a better fit and an experience candidates speak positively about, even after a rejection.