What are multiple mini interviews?

Multiple mini interviews are a series of structured interviews that are designed to assess candidates on specific criteria. A quick refresher: You can design structured interviews by answering three questions.

• Who are you trying to hire?

• How will you evaluate your candidates?

• What will the interview process look like?

Generally, the hiring manager and their talent acquisition partner work together to answer each of these questions in a role kickoff meeting.

Rather than trying to squeeze everything into a single interview (which can be overwhelming for the candidate and put a lot of pressure on the interviewers), having multiple mini interviews allows each interviewer to focus on a specific area. This approach often also involves a take-home assignment, which gives candidates the chance to showcase their skills and get a sense of the type of work they’d be performing in the role.

The exact number and type of multiple mini interviews will vary depending on the company and role, but some of the common steps include an initial screen with a recruiter, an interview with the hiring manager, a take-home assignment and then a series of interviews with others such as potential team members, department heads or executives and sometimes a cross-functional panel.

When is it best to use multiple mini interviews?

Multiple mini interviews are best utilised when you’re trying to get a well-rounded picture of a candidate’s skills and ability to succeed in a role (rather than just a rundown of their CV), when you’re trying to make data-informed hiring decisions (instead of relying on gut feelings or first impressions) and when you’re trying to reduce bias in the hiring process – in other words, pretty much anytime you’re making a hire!

The advantage of structured interviews is that they require you to define what you're looking for up front. This makes your interview process more efficient and creates a better experience for candidates. Involving several interviewers also gives candidates a more comprehensive perspective on your company's culture and approach to work. Explore more of the benefits of multiple mini interviews in this blog post.

How does Greenhouse perform multiple mini interviews?

At Greenhouse, we put a lot of thought and effort into our hiring process. “Our goal is to ensure candidates get a crystal-clear sense of our culture, meet their potential teammates and understand the role they are interviewing for”, explained Greenhouse People Storytelling Strategist, Adrina August. To make the candidate experience as inclusive and flexible as possible, Greenhouse has a structured hiring process that includes a series of mini interviews.

The hiring process begins with a kickoff meeting between the hiring manager and the talent acquisition manager. During this meeting, they align on the skills, traits and qualifications that the candidate will need to be successful in the role.

Once they have decided on the traits a successful candidate should have, they create interview kits and attach them to scorecards. Each interview kit lets the relevant interviewer know which questions to ask during their mini interview while the scorecard is where they share their feedback. We encourage our interviewers to fill out their scorecards as soon as possible after conducting an interview.

To keep unconscious bias in check during interviews, we create diverse interview panels and use in-product prompts to help interviewers stay aware and remain objective.

For each of the multiple mini interviews, there's a deliberate process and rubric applied to all candidates. “This rubric is designed to ensure that all candidates receive an equal opportunity to demonstrate their talents and skills during the interview process”, said Adrina. “We create interview questions that assess a candidate on each attribute, and these questions are typically a mix of behavioural, skills and situational questions.” Explore more about how to design interview questions here.

After all the multiple mini interviews have been completed, the hiring team holds a round-up meeting to discuss the final-stage candidates and make decisions that are based on evidence and data, rather than on potential biases.

“We believe that these practices ensure a fair and equitable process for all candidates, and are committed to continuing to create an inclusive interviewing process.”