Traditional interviews are a standard in hiring processes across organizations, and honestly, they should have died 20 years ago. You ask candidates about their strengths and weaknesses, where they see themselves in five years, asked your favorite questions, and how they’d handle hypothetical situations. You take notes, nod thoughtfully, and walk away feeling like you’ve gathered meaningful information.
But have you ever stopped to ask: what exactly did you learn?
After working with hundreds of organizations on their hiring processes, we’ve seen a disturbing pattern. Traditional interviews create the illusion of insight while actually revealing almost nothing about a candidate’s ability to succeed in the role. Let’s talk about why.
The Truth About Traditional Interviews
Standard interviews are comfortable—we’ve all experienced them as both interviewer and candidate. But that familiarity is precisely the problem. They’re predictable, easy to prepare for, and tell you virtually nothing about how someone will actually perform on the job.
Consider these typical traditional interview questions:
• “Tell me about yourself.”
• “What are your greatest strengths?”
• “What would you do if a team member wasn’t pulling their weight?”
• “Why are you interested in this position?”
These questions might feel probing, but they’re actually invitations for rehearsed performances. Candidates know these questions are coming and have crafted responses designed to impress you rather than reveal their actual capabilities.
Why Traditional Interviews Fail
Traditional interviews fail for several fundamental reasons:
They test interview skills, not job skills.
The ability to perform well in an interview has almost no relationship to job performance (unless that’s what you’re actually hiring for!). You’re essentially hiring the best interviewee, not the best candidate for the role.
They’re dominated by the interviewer.
In traditional interviews, the interviewer often talks 50% of the time or more. That’s problematic because every minute you’re talking is a minute you’re not learning about the candidate.
They elicit hypothetical answers.
Questions like “How would you handle…” invite responses about what candidates think they would do, not what they’ve actually done. The gap between imagination and reality is enormous.
They’re vulnerability-proof.
Traditional interviews create a protective barrier that makes it nearly impossible to see how candidates actually operate under pressure, handle complexity, or approach real problems.
They breed confirmation bias.
After reading a resume, most interviewers form an impression and then unconsciously seek information that confirms it, ignoring contradictory data.
The Behavioral Interview Half-Step
Many organizations have made the shift to what they call “behavioral interviewing,” believing they’ve solved the interview problem. They’ve replaced “What would you do if…” with “Tell me about a time when…”
The truth? This is only a marginal improvement.
Most behavioral interviews as practiced today are merely traditional interviews in disguise. The interviewer still dominates the conversation, still directs the topics, and (most importantly) still accepts surface-level answers without digging for specifics. Candidates still prepare rehearsed stories about leadership challenges or overcoming obstacles. As a matter of fact, you can go online and find guidelines on how to respond to the 20 most common behavioral interview questions!
True behavioral assessment requires having clear models of the roles, competencies, and leadership styles required for success in the position—and knowing exactly what behaviors indicate proficiency in each area. Without this foundation, even “behavioral” interviews become just another subjective exercise. Setting up the performance criteria models is the subject for another article, but they’re the missing link in most interview processes!
The Data Don’t Lie
Here’s the sobering reality: research consistently shows that traditional interviews have about as much value in predicting job success as flipping a coin. That’s a 50% hit rate—which means you’re just as likely to miss as you are to succeed. Basic behavioral interviews only increase this marginally to about 60% accuracy—still far from what’s possible and desirable.
Think about your last three hires. How many truly met your expectations? If you’re like most organizations, at least one (and possibly more) fell short. That’s not a coincidence—it’s the statistical outcome of a flawed methodology.
How We Fool Ourselves
The most dangerous aspect of traditional interviews is that they create a false sense of confidence. We walk away feeling like we’ve made an informed decision, when in reality, we’ve mostly been assessing:
• How much we personally like the candidate
• How comfortable they make us feel
• How similar they are to us
• How well they’ve rehearsed common interview questions
None of these factors predict job success. In fact, sometimes the candidates who make the worst first impressions end up being the strongest performers, while those charming, articulate interviewees struggle to deliver results.
Breaking the Pattern
So what’s the alternative? The most effective approach is Guided Storytelling Interviewing (GSI), which is the gold standard for qualitative assessment. GSI is based on measurable competency models—not just asking for example stories that only touch on surface details and actually allows you to get real measures of competency proficiency. GSI also accurately predicts whether someone will actually show the competencies you seek when on the job.
This requires a complete mindset shift from evaluating what people say they would do to uncovering patterns in what they’ve actually done, and then systematically matching those proficiencies to job requirements.
Organizations that make this shift typically see their hiring success rates jump from around 50% to 90% or more —a game-changing improvement that directly impacts their bottom line.
First Steps Away From Traditional Interviews
You don’t need to overhaul your entire hiring process overnight. Start with these simple changes:
Define success clearly. Have a dynamic, detailed, and prioritized job description as a model for what you’d like to see in a candidate. One way to do this is to identify top performers in your organization who are in this position and formally capture what they think, feel, and do, that makes them so good in their roles.
Stop preparing a list of questions. Instead, prepare a framework for guiding candidates through selected experiences.
Ban hypothetical scenarios. Replace “What would you do if…” with “Tell me about a story about a high point/low point in your career that gives me a picture of what you look like in action.” Repeat to get several stories.
Explore deeper. When candidates give you a brief answer, ask: “What did you actually do?” “What did you say?” “What did you see?” “What did you feel?” “What did you do next?” “What happened next?” The goal is to have the person recreate the story in detail, so you can identify the criteria being demonstrated.
Control your airtime. If you’re talking more than 10% of the time, you’re talking too much.
Give it some time. A 20-minute slot isn’t enough time to get to know a candidate. Spending more time hearing their stories and learning about their demonstrated capabilities will pay off in the end.
Remember, we’re not trying to hire someone who interviews well – a lot more people talk a good game than play a good game. We’re trying to hire someone who will excel in the specific role you need to fill. When we focus on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that define competence instead of polished responses to expected questions, we dramatically increase our chances of making the right choice.
The familiar comfort of traditional interviews is actually what makes them so dangerous. They feel informative while revealing almost nothing of substance. Breaking free from this pattern is one of the most impactful changes we can make to build stronger, more effective teams and organizations.