[iamsb]

> Did this result in poorer job performance for the DevOps team, or any other negative business results that were specific to that team? If not, who’s to say which interviewing method was better or worse?

It did. And even if it had not in this particular case, it will hurt the company in the long run. There is not even a shred of doubt in my mind that diversity (of thought) is the best investment that leads to success.

I have been using scripted interviews, the same method I mentioned in original comment, for more than 5 years now, hiring more than 200 engineers in three continent and I am super happy with my results.

[jldugger]

> It did. And even if it had not in this particular case, it will hurt the company in the long run.

Honestly, having been on plenty of interview panels for a decade now for DevOps and SRE roles, I'm not sure structured interviews, no matter how awesome they are, can solve the recruitment diversity problem. The war was already lost the moment the job description was published, IMO.

[ButtSpark69]

I think it's also important to keep in mind that at minimum it would take a generation to truly solve in a root-cause way (one that won't just come back the minute you focus on something else). Many of these biases get built during childhood when your brain is so so much more plastic.

[jldugger]

I'm not sure anyone in Kindergarten knows anything about having a job, let alone DevOps. =)

[pallavkaushish]

I have seen the same thing happening in recruitment for marketing roles. Totally unscripted interviews often leads to suboptimal results in terms of the quality of the candidate and their fit for the role. Made this mistake firsthand before devising my own process of hiring.

And the process I follow is based on having an exhaustive list of questions covering all areas of the role but during the interview if something else comes up, I don’t mind pursuing that and going unscripted. It often helps me add more questions to my list so my list of questions keeps improving.

I’ve been following this process for last couple of years and the structured process has helped me hire some of the best people I had the privilege of working with. Also, I feel more confident that I’m hiring the right candidate. But of course, there could be an element of bias in there.

Side point - I’ve just finished a SEO hiring guide that covers my whole process of hiring an SEO person (both junior and senior roles). Will be publishing that in the next 4-5 days. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy, my email is in the bio.