The field of human resources is well over 100 years old. During that time span, companies have realized the cost of hiring the wrong person. For this reason, applied psychologists have done significant research to answer the most fundamental question: what is the best way to screen a candidate?

Structured interviews are interviews where you come prepared with a list of questions. From a research perspective, the most accurate types of questions are behavioral-based questions. Behavioral-based interviewing relies on the principle that past behavior predicts future behavior, and your goal is to see if there is evidence that the candidate has demonstrated certain skills and abilities in the past. For example, if your job requires a person to lift 50 pounds, you might ask a candidate to tell you about a time they had to lift 50 pounds on the job.

The other type of interview questioning is called situational interviewing. This style of questioning is where you ask what they would do in hypothetical situations. Evidence suggests that behavioral interviewing is better at predicting high performance in a job.

Job knowledge tests are ones that measure a candidate’s understanding of the responsibilities and skills related to a specific role. For example, if you’re looking for a QuickBooks bookkeeper, they should have knowledge about QuickBooks prior to starting. Because this method requires a candidate to already have experience and knowledge, it is not recommended for entry-level positions.

Biodata scoring is a technique where you look for evidence that a candidate possesses certain skills, experience, and attributes based on their past events. Background checks and resume scoring are examples of this technique. A recruiter typically looks to confirm behavior and ability from past employment or even a criminal background check.

Work samples are samples of previous work, work portfolios, and even temp-to-hire evaluations. Many companies use staffing agencies for this exact reason; they want to see a candidate do the job as an additional screening method. Pacific Staffing uses this method with all internal hires, as it is one of the best ways to screen new talent.

Both cognitive ability and integrity tests have shown generally to be correlated with high performance. However, in recent years, discrimination lawsuits around these tests have made many companies drop their testing. They are not illegal to perform, but you do need to independently validate them for specific jobs. For example, a janitor position that requires a high cognitive ability test score may unnecessarily eliminate protected groups; and, if you can’t validate that the test score leads to higher performance, you could be at risk for discrimination.

The important concept to know is that, in general, cognitive ability can lead to higher performance because candidates with higher cognitive ability tend to find faster ways to complete tasks, have greater raw problem-solving power, can retain more concepts at once during training, and have a greater chance of self-regulating themselves.

Integrity can be described as truthful, straightforward, absence of greed, and absence of arrogance. Even if you don’t test for this measure, it is important to know that research has shown that low integrity individuals are more likely to engage in counterproductive activities such as stealing, bullying, and sexual harassment.

You can definitely get better results if you plan ahead. An easy and effective method is to create questions beforehand related to the core competencies required for the job. This approach will make your interviewees easier to compare, and you’ll save time with a streamlined interview process. If you want to know how to create a structured interview, check out our article on structured interviews.