Time invested in the hiring process can win your organization a top performer who ultimately helps it grow — or, just as easily, a poor fit who doesn’t stay long, leading to additional strains on resources. Employers today are, as ever, under pressure to fill open roles quickly, but the consequences of a poor choice can ripple through an organization for years.

Each hiring decision shapes not only who joins your team but also how your company defines itself — and as AI’s capabilities evolve at a rapid-fire pace, it can be tough to envision exactly what the job description of today’s new hire, let alone yours, might entail in the months and years ahead. No wonder hiring can seem like a gamble, even in an employer’s market. How do you spot real potential in a sea of polished resumes? How do you distinguish between someone who shines on paper and someone who will actually strengthen your team? And how do you make the right call when the stakes — time, money, culture, performance — are so high?

From attracting top talent by building a stronger employer brand to asking probing interview questions to weed out AI-generated responses, the ideas and insights gathered here from MIT SMR experts can make each step of the hiring process more focused, intentional, and effective.

1. Deliberate phrasing can elicit thoughtful responses to standard interview questions.

“I’ve amassed a large data set of questions that leaders use as a work-around to avoid the pat and predictable answers that job candidates recycle in response to standard hiring questions. Some leaders have come up with ‘bank shot’ questions to get around the polished facades that people present in interviews so that they can better understand who candidates really are.

“To categorize all of the interview questions I’ve heard over the years, I sorted them into what I call essential questions — the core questions that the interviewer is trying to answer about the candidate as part of their key checklist. For example: Are they self-aware? Are they a team player? Do they have a strong sense of personal accountability and responsibility? In an ideal world, it would be more efficient to simply pose those questions and get an honest yes-or-no answer. But many people are quite savvy about offering up answers that they think the interviewer wants to hear.

“The bank-shot questions below require meaningful and authentic answers that candidates can’t take from a cookie-cutter script, even if they’ve been asked them before.”

Read the full article, “Eight Essential Interview Questions CEOs Swear By,” by Adam Bryant.

2. Determine candidates’ true capabilities with probing follow-ups.

“Strategically, interviewing in the age of AI also requires effective follow-up questions to uncover deeper indicators of genuine expertise. Can they explain how to do something, not just what to do? Do they know why something works? Do they know when, where, and for whom something is more effective? Have they considered other approaches? And are they aware of the drawbacks of their approach? Those types of questions can push potential hires to go beyond their rehearsed or surface-level answers. …

“By strategically probing candidates’ initial answers, interviewers can go beyond simply what candidates say they have done in the past to uncover the underlying thought processes behind their decisions and actions, which is crucial for two reasons.

“First, only those who have internalized their KSAOs [knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics] can provide insightful answers that genuinely reflect their abilities and potential job performance. Therefore, assessing these deeper indicators is important regardless of whether candidates have used generative AI for interview preparation, though such queries can certainly help interviewers spot candidates who are reciting AI-generated responses without comprehending them.

“Second, these deeper indicators reflect skills that are among the most important for workers globally, according to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Future of Jobs Report 2023.’ Whether termed critical thinking, reasoning, or judgment and decision-making, these are uniquely human capabilities that AI cannot replicate. Ensuring that candidates possess abilities that add value beyond what technology can currently achieve is fundamental to any hiring process.”

Read the full article, “When Candidates Use Generative AI for the Interview,” by Navio Kwok.

3. Character can outweigh a candidate’s competencies.

“Research has found that unlike competencies, which vary between organizations and often between levels of the organization, character attributes are universal. And while competencies may be evaluated independently of each other, character attributes are interconnected and need to be considered holistically. To do this well, hiring managers and HR leaders need to understand what character is, how it manifests, and how it can be developed.

“When hiring based on competence, the classic approach is to use structured interviews and associated assessment rubrics to evaluate what someone can do or how they would do it. Every person being interviewed during a particular process is assessed in the same way to minimize interviewer bias and foster objectivity. In contrast, character is about who someone is and how they became that person and thus is unique to the individual. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, with a standard list of questions, for evaluating someone’s character. Instead, character assessments are more free-flowing and personalized conversations. They are objective and rigorous yet also honor individual differences. …

“The individual differences arise because every person’s life story is different when it comes to the development of their character — and we can honor that uniqueness. Because character is not static but is a habit being developed over a person’s lifetime, assessment of character can be ongoing and repeated, whether it be in hiring or promotion decisions.”

Read the full article, “Make Character Count in Hiring and Promoting,” by Mary Crossan.