Not everyone should be in your interviews

Not everyone should be in your interviews

One of the most overlooked parts of hiring is who you let into the interview process. Not every employee should be part of the interview team.

Years ago, I sat in on a final interview where a team member asked a principal-level candidate a series of confusing, irrelevant technical questions. Not to challenge them, but to prove their own knowledge. The candidate politely smiled through it but later told me, "I don't think this is the right environment for me."

We lost them.

That stuck with me.

Here's the thing: strong candidates are evaluating you too. Every interviewer they meet shapes their perception of the team, the culture, the kind of place this is to work. A bad interviewer doesn't just give you a poor signal on the candidate—it actively costs you the hire. That principal-level candidate wasn't just answering questions. They were watching how we operated. And they didn't like what they saw.

It's common to build interview panels based on who's available. But if you're serious about building high-performing teams, you need to be more intentional.

Make sure interviewers have the right context. A software engineer should be interviewed by someone who understands the work. Without that, the assessment won't go deep enough to tell you what you need to know.

Only the hiring manager should make the final decision. Everyone else should be given a defined area to assess, with aligned questions—technical depth, collaboration style, and problem-solving approach. Clear lanes prevent overlap and keep the process focused.

Make sure all interviewers are familiar with your company's hiring policies and relevant employment laws, including the types of questions they're not allowed to ask.

And some people shouldn't be in interviews at all. People who talk over or intimidate candidates. People who treat interviews as a place to show how much smarter they are.

Even with the best intentions, certain behaviors undermine the process. Some team members approach interviews as a chance to demonstrate their expertise, asking overly complex or off-topic questions. But the goal isn't to impress or challenge for the sake of it. It's to create space for candidates to show what they're capable of, in ways that are relevant to the role.

The interview is about them, not you.

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