Throughout the hiring process it is great to involve the whole team and make them part of the process. It gives your team the opportunity to be involved and meet the candidate that they could be working with down the road.

When do peer interviews become a problem?

When it is at the front of the process. A peer review should never happen at the front of the process, or before you get the chance to interview the candidate.

Why is that a bad idea?

In simple terms, human nature. When you are trusting your team to do a peer interview, you are under the belief that your team member will always make the right decision for the company and never make a decision selfishly. We want to believe the best of our team, but when it comes to peer interviews, we need to approach with caution.

Humans have emotions, which will tie into their decisions.

For example, you have a very strong candidate in every aspect of their resume and you want your go to employee to interview them first. Your employee goes into the interview, and the candidate does well, but your employee feels threatened. What kind of feedback do you think you are going to get? Chances are the interviewer’s insecurities are going to have an influence on the feedback you receive.

What is the best way to go about peer interviews?

The best way to incorporate peer interviews into the hiring process so your team can be included, is to have them happen after you have done your interview with the candidate. This eliminates the opportunity for your team to block any great candidates and taint your opinion of a candidate before your interview with them has even begun.

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