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Practitioner · Chapter 5 · 14 of 24 in the series
Build Structured Interview Kits in Quelixa
Prepare the same questions, probes and behavioral anchors before meeting candidates. This walkthrough follows three panel members recording independent competency ratings and the evidence behind each score.
01Lesson notes
Step by step#
Recruitment › Selection › Competency Dimensions
- Leadership Potential — One of six, all anchored.
- Anchors — Every competency has them.
- Requirement — Mandatory, or optional.
Recruitment › Competency Dimensions › Leadership Potential
- Rating anchors — Three sentences, one per level.
- Weak — Waits to be told; avoids ownership.
- Outstanding — Brings others along, with or without authority.
Recruitment › Competency Dimensions › New
- Handling escalations — A new competency.
- Weight 2, mandatory — Counts double; every member must rate it.
- Only for one job post — Customer Success Team Lead.
Recruitment › Competency Dimensions › New
- Weak — Passes the customer on; no follow-up.
- Acceptable — Owns it; honest about when the rest is done.
- Outstanding — Fixes the cause as well as the case.
Recruitment › Selection › Interview Kit › New
- The question — A situation from the job itself.
- Competency and type — Handling escalations · situational.
- What good looks like — What the panel listens for.
- Follow-up probes — The same probes for everyone.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Team Lead — structured panel interview
- Panel session — Tuesday, 45 minutes each, four-point scale.
- Quick actions — ISO 10667 readiness 5 of 5.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Interview kit
- Fits the slot — 6 questions, 28 minutes in a 45-minute slot.
- The anchors — Next to every question.
- The question — With what to listen for, and the probes.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Assessment procedure
- Scoring method — Rate every competency; marks averaged.
- Validated — James Whitfield, 11 February.
- Assessors briefed — The panel knows the method.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Lock & Call Candidates
- Quick actions — Sheets: 0 of 3 submitted.
- Panel session — Now locked.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Panel & schedule
- Panel & schedule — Lukas chairs; Hannah, Layla, Omar.
Recruitment › My Marking Sheets › Scoring desk
- Scoring desk — A card per candidate.
- Submit Sheet — Waits until every candidate is scored.
Recruitment › Scoring desk › Interview kit
- Handling escalations — Question, listen-for, probes, anchors.
- Leadership Potential — The same, for every competency.
Recruitment › Scoring desk › Layla Haddad
- Marks — 86 out of 100.
- Recommendation — Strongly recommend.
- Competencies — A rating per competency, with evidence.
Recruitment › Scoring desk › Save scores
- Saved — Submit from Quick Actions when done.
- Progress — 2 of 3.
Recruitment › Scoring desk › Compare candidates
- Locked — Colleagues' ratings open once you submit.
Recruitment › Scoring desk › Submit Sheet
- Quick actions — Reopen Sheet — and it is logged.
- Submitted — 3 of 3.
Recruitment › Scoring desk › Compare candidates
- Three members — Every sheet is in.
- One split — Ratings 40+ points apart.
- Omar — A red dot on leadership.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Compare candidates › Omar Farouk
- Leadership Potential — Outstanding, good, acceptable — split ±50.
- Concerns noted — From all three sheets.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Compare candidates
- Leadership Potential — James: good — with the reason.
- No split — Nothing left to discuss.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Chronicle
- Reopened — James reopened his sheet after submitting it.
- Resubmitted — Then submitted it again.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Close Interview — Decide
- Quick actions — Closed; sheets locked.
- Passed — All three.
Recruitment › Interview Registers › Panel & schedule
- Panel & schedule — Layla 86, Hannah 74, Omar 68.
In Recruitment › Selection › Competency Dimensions, open a competency and read its three anchors. Draft one situational question for a role you hire for, with what good looks like and two follow-up probes.
Transcript
The same questions
Lina: Wednesday the tenth of February. Four people are still in the running for the Dubai team lead.
Amara Okafor: Last time, we each asked whatever we liked.
James Whitfield: This time we write the questions down first.
Lina: This chapter: an interview kit, a panel that rates apart, and what happens when it disagrees.
Lina: A structured interview asks everyone the same questions, and rates the answers against descriptions written in advance. It is fairer — and it predicts the job better.
Four habits
Lina: Four habits.
Lina: The same questions, in the same order, for everyone.
David: Otherwise you're comparing conversations, not people.
Lina: Exactly. Second, anchors: what a weak, an acceptable and an outstanding answer sounds like — written before the first interview.
David: Because afterwards they bend towards whoever you liked.
Lina: Third, every member rates alone.
Lina: And where ratings still land far apart, the panel talks about the evidence instead of letting an average hide it.
The competency library
Lina: James starts in the competency library: six things Northwind assesses at interview.
Lina: Each says whether it must be rated,
Lina: and each carries its anchors.
Lina: He opens Leadership Potential.
What each rating means
Lina: Here are its anchors.
Lina: Weak: waits to be told, avoids ownership when things go wrong.
Lina: Outstanding: sets direction and brings others along — with or without a formal title.
David: Three sentences, and three interviewers mean the same thing by 'good'.
Lina: That's the whole point of them.
One competency for this role
David: None of them covers an angry customer on a Friday afternoon.
Lina: So James adds one: Handling escalations,
Lina: weight two, and mandatory,
Lina: for the team lead post only.
Anchors for escalations
Lina: Then its anchors.
Lina: Weak: passes the customer on, or promises what can't be delivered.
Lina: Acceptable: owns it, and is honest about when the rest will be done.
Lina: Outstanding: fixes the cause as well as the case.
David: That's the job description, really.
Lina: It should be — the job, as behaviour you can hear in an answer.
The question
Lina: Then the question.
Lina: A key customer threatens to cancel on a Friday, after an integration failed twice. Your specialist has apologised. What do you do?
Lina: Situational: what would you do.
Lina: What good looks like: calls the customer the same day, separates today's fix from the root cause, and supports the specialist.
David: Even the follow-ups are written down.
Lina: So every candidate gets them, not just the ones the panel warms to. Off screen, James picks five competencies for the post, and makes leadership a must-rate too.
Three go through
Lina: Friday. A one-hour written case study at the Dubai hub, marked the same afternoon.
Lina: Layla eighty-two, Hannah seventy-eight, Omar seventy-one. Arjun, forty-four — below the pass mark; Elena closes his application, with the reason recorded.
Lukas Brandt: Three of them, three of us. I'll chair.
Lina: Lukas, Amara, and James from London.
The interview register
Lina: Monday. Elena's interview register for Tuesday.
Lina: The panel; forty-five minutes each, on video; marks out of a hundred, pass at fifty; and the four-point scale.
Lina: ISO 10667 readiness: five of five.
The kit, assembled
Lina: The kit: six questions, five competencies — twenty-eight minutes in a forty-five minute slot.
David: A kit that doesn't fit gets cut, and the last candidate gets a shorter interview.
Lina: Right. Open a competency: the anchors,
Lina: the question, what to listen for, the probes.
The procedure, on record
Lina: And the procedure on record, as ISO 10667 asks: how it is scored — the average of three sheets,
Lina: who validated it,
Lina: and that the panel was briefed.
Candidates called
Lina: Elena locks the register and calls the candidates: each gets their slot and the video link.
Lina: Three marking sheets open, and she notifies the panel.
Three sheets, three slots
Lina: Lukas chairs; Hannah at half past nine, Layla at quarter past ten, Omar at eleven.
Why the panel marks apart
Lina: Why mark apart?
Lina: The first number you see pulls yours towards it — anchoring. Knowing about it doesn't stop it.
Lina: So each rating needs evidence: what the candidate said or did.
David: And Lukas is on the board. Amara shouldn't have to contradict him before her view is on record.
Lina: That's the quieter reason.
The scoring desk
Lina: Tuesday, ten past ten. Amara's scoring desk: Hannah is done — marks, a recommendation, a rating per competency.
Lina: Submit waits for all three.
The kit, on the sheet
Lina: Before Layla joins, she opens the kit on the sheet: question, probes, anchors,
Lina: for every competency.
David: Right next to where she rates.
Lina: No second window.
Rating Layla
Lina: Eleven o'clock. Amara rates Layla.
Lina: Handling escalations: outstanding — she called the customer herself that afternoon, and kept the specialist on the call. Leadership: good — she coached rather than took over.
David: 'Outstanding' is an opinion. 'Called the customer that afternoon' is a fact.
Lina: And facts are what you need when someone asks why.
Lina: Strongly recommend,
Lina: eighty-six marks.
Saved, not submitted
Lina: Saved — two of three, still hers to change.
Only her own ratings
Lina: She opens Compare candidates: only her own ratings. Colleagues' open once she submits.
David: Not even the chair's?
Lina: Not even the chair's.
Handed in
Lina: Ten to twelve: Omar scored, sheet submitted.
Lina: Reopening is still possible — and noted on the register.
The whole panel
Lina: Now all three members are in.
Lina: Each cell is the panel's average; the overall weighs them. Layla, Hannah, Omar.
Lina: One split to discuss:
Lina: Omar's leadership averages seventy-five — looks fine. The red dot says it isn't.
Why it is split
Lina: Elena opens Omar's row. Lukas: outstanding — Omar ran a night shift of four. James: acceptable — he never heard the team in his answers.
David: So the seventy-five is really an argument.
Lina: One the average would have hidden.
Lina: And the concerns from all three sheets.
Talking it through
Lina: On the panel call, Lukas asks each of them for their evidence.
Lukas Brandt: He built that night shift, James. He hired two of them.
James Whitfield: I didn't probe that. More than acceptable, then.
Lina: Nobody votes the split away. Each member reconsiders their own rating.
After the talk
Lina: James reopens his sheet: leadership now good — with the reason written in.
Lina: No split left. The other ratings stand.
David: Changing a score afterwards sounds risky.
Lina: In secret, it would be.
On the record
Lina: The register shows it: reopened after submitting,
Lina: and submitted again.
Interview closed
Lina: Elena closes the interview: sheets locked, marks averaged.
Lina: All three pass.
The marks
Lina: Layla eighty-six, Hannah seventy-four, Omar sixty-eight.
David: And the ratings and evidence stay on the register.
Lina: Yes — the marks go on to the merit list.
Three things to keep
Lina: Three things to keep.
Lina: Write questions and anchors before the first candidate walks in.
Lina: Rate apart.
David: And when the panel disagrees?
Lina: Talk it through on the evidence, and keep the record.
A letter from Arjun
Elena Novak: Arjun Pillai has written. He wants to know why he didn't get through.
Lina: Next chapter: appeals and candidate communication.
Lina: That was structured interview kits. See you in chapter six.