Creating An Inclusive Interview Environment

### Overview In this talk, Jeff Strauss, a Technical Program Manager at Snapchat, discusses how organizations can restructure the job interview process to create a more inclusive, diverse, equitable, and aware (IDEA) hiring environment. While many tech organizations have invested heavily in pre-hire sourcing initiatives and post-hire equity training, Strauss argues that the interview stage itself remains prone to ad hoc decision-making and bias. By re-evaluating conventional interview panel structures, establishing standardized evaluation rubrics, and adopting innovative interview techniques, companies can better identify candidates with high aptitude and positive attitudes who might otherwise be screened out by traditional resume-focused assessments.

### Key Topics - **Current State of Diversity & Inclusion**: Pre-hire efforts (e.g., removing biased barrier words from applicant tracking systems, sourcing from underrepresented talent pools, and screening candidates in rather than out) and post-hire efforts (e.g., bias awareness training, ERGs, and equitable performance and promotion management) are advancing, but the actual interview loop often lags behind. - **Failure Modes of Standard Interview Panels**: Conventional interview loops typically consist of a hiring manager, HR, a cross-functional partner, a technical assessor, and a cultural assessor selected mainly on domain expertise and availability. This setup often results in inconsistency across candidates, interviewer fatigue, reluctance, and the reproduction of in-group/out-group biases and microaggressions. - **Panel Buy-in and Interviewer Certification**: Improving panel diversity and setting role-level time commitments ensures consistent candidate evaluation. Comprehensive certification—including unconscious bias training, feedback training, and conversational leadership—prepares interviewers to conduct equitable evaluations. - **Standardized Assessments and Behavioral Scoring**: Moving away from ad hoc questioning toward standardized question templates and behavioral rating scales (evaluating whether a candidate exhibited specific behaviors rather than a generic 1-to-5 hire/no-hire score). - **Alternative Assessment Formats**: Introducing creative, lower-stress assessment mechanisms such as sharing questions in advance, having candidates teach the interviewer a topic of expertise, and utilizing cooperative team games.

### Technical Details Strauss details specific structural changes implemented to replace conventional unstructured interviews: - **Interviewer Certification**: Interviewers undergo an onboarding curriculum spanning several hours of one-on-one, group, and video training covering implicit bias recognition, feedback calibration for debriefs, and conversational leadership to manage structured yet open dialogues. - **Role-Level Interview Templates**: Teams create standardized documentation containing fixed questions, conversational discussion guides, and behavioral rating rubrics. Instead of arbitrary numerical scales, questions assess explicit behaviors (such as whether an applicant leaned into a challenge versus shied away). - **Take-Home Questions and Asynchronous Prep**: Interview questions are shared with candidates prior to interviews. This measures written communication, answer competency, and preparation without forcing immediate on-the-spot performance. - **Teach-Back Sessions**: Candidates are instructed to teach the interviewer a subject they are an expert in. Interviewers ask naive or challenging questions to assess communication ability, patience, and mentoring potential under mild friction. - **Collaborative Problem-Solving and Games**: Interview loops sometimes integrate collaborative group games (such as the game *Codenames*) to observe real-time communication, teamwork under pressure, and interpersonal problem-solving.

### Takeaways - Standardize the interview panel and commitment for the entire role rather than swapping interviewers midway, which distorts the evaluation baseline. - Replace subjective "yes/no" or generic 1–5 scoring with specific behavioral scales tied to core competencies and values. - Provide formal interview certification covering feedback mechanics, bias mitigation, and conversational leadership. - Experiment with innovative formats (such as sharing questions in advance, teach-backs, and collaborative gameplay) to reveal "double A" candidates—those possessing positive attitudes and strong aptitudes—who may lack traditional academic or pedigree markers. - Continually iterate on the hiring process by gathering debrief feedback from both panelists and candidates.