What is a structured interview? Definition, research and an example

A structured interview is a job interview in which every candidate is asked the same job-related questions, in the same order, and every answer is scored against the same written rating scale. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reduces it to three conditions: the same questions for everyone, a common rating scale, and interviewers who agree in advance on what an acceptable answer looks like.

This page explains what makes an interview structured, how one is built and run, what the research found, and how the term differs from behavioral, competency-based and semi-structured interviews. If you want to set one up this week without special software, how to run a structured interview without an ATS has the kit.

What makes an interview structured?

OPM's Structured Interviews: A Practical Guide (September 2008) sets the two formats side by side:

Structure is a matter of degree rather than a switch. A widely cited review by Campion, Palmer and Campion (1997, Personnel Psychology) identified fifteen components of structure, split between the content of the interview (job analysis, identical questions, limited and planned probing, better question types, longer interviews, keeping ancillary information such as the resume out of it, no candidate questions until the end) and the evaluation (rating each answer, anchored scales, detailed notes, multiple interviewers, the same interviewers for every candidate, no discussion between interviews, interviewer training, and statistical rather than gut combination of ratings). The more of these an interview uses, the more structured it is.

How does a structured interview work?

OPM's guide lists eight steps to build one. In plain terms:

1. Analyze the job. Identify the tasks and the competencies needed to do them from day one.
2. Pick the competencies the interview will assess. OPM says a structured interview typically covers four to six, unless the job is unusual or very senior.
3. Choose the question format and write the questions. Past-behavior questions ("tell me about a time...") or situational ones ("what would you do if..."), or a mix.
4. Build the rating scale. One proficiency range for all competencies, with behavioral examples for each level. See what is a hiring rubric.
5. Write the probes. Planned follow-ups that draw out the situation, the action and the result.
6. Pilot the questions and fix any that confuse people or fail to separate strong from weak answers.
7. Write the interviewer's guide, so every interviewer runs the same interview. The interview guide template is a ready-made version.
8. Document how it was built, so the process can be explained and repeated.

Running it follows the same logic. OPM's guide asks for the same amount of time for every candidate, detailed notes on what was said, documents such as the resume kept out of the interviewer's hands during the interview, and a rating made straight after the candidate leaves, supported by examples of actual answers. In a panel, each member rates independently before the panel discusses and agrees a consensus rating, which is what a hiring debrief should do.

What does the research say about structured interviews?

The case for structure rests on decades of selection research. Three sources carry most of it:

• Schmidt and Hunter (1998, Psychological Bulletin) summarized 85 years of research and reported mean validity estimates, meaning correlations with later job performance, of .51 for structured interviews and .38 for unstructured interviews.
• Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens (2022, Journal of Applied Psychology) argued that earlier corrections for range restriction overstated many of those figures. The procedures that ranked high before mostly stayed high, with mean validity estimates reduced by .10 to .20, and structured interviews emerged as the top-ranked selection procedure in their review; SIOP's summary of the paper gives their mean operational validity as .42.
• Levashina, Hartwell, Morgeson and Campion (2014, Personnel Psychology) reviewed twenty years of research on structured interviews, covering bias, rating scales, probing and question types, and concluded that much is known while many questions remain open.

OPM's own summary is the practical one: unstructured interviews show low reliability and low to moderate validity, while structured interviews have shown high reliability, validity and legal defensibility. Two cautions apply. Validity figures are averages across many studies, not a promise for your next hire, and they describe interviews that were actually run as designed. A structured kit that interviewers ignore is an unstructured interview with paperwork.

What does a structured interview question look like?

An invented example for an operations coordinator role, competency "prioritization":

Question (asked of every candidate, in this position in the interview):
"Tell me about the last time you had more urgent requests than you could
finish that day. What was on the list, and what did you do?"

Planned probes (use any, for anyone):
- How did you decide what came first?
- Who did you tell about the things that slipped, and when?
- What happened to the work you deferred?

Rating scale (1-4):
4  Ranked work by impact and deadline, told affected people before
   the deadline passed, renegotiated or delegated, and checked the
   outcome afterwards.
3  Ranked work sensibly and communicated, but only once asked or
   after the fact.
2  Worked through tasks in arrival order or by who asked loudest;
   some communication.
1  No clear method; work was missed without anyone being told.
Not assessed: no relevant example given after the probes.

The anchors are what make it structured. Two interviewers who hear the same answer should reach the same number, and if they do not, an interview calibration session finds out why. Ratings like these then go on each interviewer's interview scorecard.

How is a structured interview different from similar terms?

A behavioral interview is not automatically structured. If each interviewer picks different "tell me about a time" questions and rates on gut feel, the format is behavioral but the interview is unstructured.

What are the most common mistakes?

• Same questions, no anchors. Identical questions scored on "1 to 5, gut feel" give consistent asking and inconsistent judging. The anchors matter as much as the questions; behavioral anchors for interview scores has a library to start from.
• Improvised follow-ups for favorites. Harder probing for one candidate and gentle probing for another undoes the structure quietly. Keep probes in the guide.
• Reading the resume during the interview. OPM warns this can tilt ratings toward candidates with strong resumes. Prepare from it beforehand, then put it away.
• Too many competencies. Ten competencies in an hour means none is assessed properly. Stay within OPM's four to six.
• Talking between interviews. A hallway "how did it go?" makes the next rating less independent. Hold comments until scorecards are in.
• Scoring the small talk. Rapport at the start is good for the candidate; it is not evidence. Bias in these moments is covered in how to reduce bias in interviews.
• Losing track of the plan mid-call. Interviewers skip planned questions when a conversation flows. Some tools help here: Interview Signal, which we make, keeps must-ask questions pinned on screen until they have been asked.

When should you use a structured interview?

Use one for any interview whose result feeds a hiring decision: phone screens, hiring manager interviews, panels and final rounds. It matters most when several people interview for the same role, when many candidates are compared, and when you may later have to explain why one person was hired over another.

It is less necessary for conversations that are not scored, such as a coffee meeting to sell the role to a candidate you have already decided to hire, or an informal chat about team fit after the assessment is complete. Even then, keep those conversations out of the scoring, and keep the structured part structured. Small teams that hire a few times a year benefit just as much; the effort is a few hours to write the guide and scale once per role.