Solutions
Own the criteria for each role, and carry them past the offer
What you look for changes with the role, but your hiring managers’ diaries are already full. The AI Interviewer takes the first round, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in parallel. You define the criteria for each role yourself, so selection and the review after joining run on one yardstick.
The problem
The criteria change with the role, and so do the interviewers
In experienced hiring, what matters differs from role to role. The interviewer is a line manager for whom hiring is not the day job. So the criteria stay unwritten, held in each interviewer’s head.
- Managers’ diaries fill up, and it takes one to two weeks to reach a first interview
- In that time the candidate moves further through someone else’s process
- A different manager interviews for each role, so even within one role the baseline drifts
- Scores from selection never meet the review after joining, so which hires worked stays a matter of impression
Building the criteria
Write the criteria for each role as behaviour
What do you look at, role by role? Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare publishes the Vocational Ability Evaluation Standards as a model. Work is broken down as occupation, job, ability unit and ability item, and behaviour that leads to results is set out as the standards for job performance. They are published for 56 industries; the clerical occupations cover nine occupations and nineteen jobs.
Those standards separate levels by the scope of responsibility and the difficulty expected. Apply the same idea, written so that what is said in the interview can be scored directly, and it looks like this. Sales is used as the example, on five levels.
Facing the customer
Framing the problem
Showed the customer a problem they had not yet named, and created the agenda itself
Checked what lay behind the request and redefined the problem to be solved
Made the request concrete and confirmed, in the customer’s words, why it mattered
Captured the request accurately and turned it into a proposal as stated
Can recount how the deal went, but not what they treated as the problem
Moving the organisation
Getting it done
Redesigned terms that would not pass the usual route, with the departments involved, until it held
Brought other departments in early and had agreement before the proposal went out
Asked the right departments and had documents and quotes ready on time
Followed a manager’s instruction and worked through the necessary steps
On internal work, describes only the part they handled
Passing it on
Repeatability
Put the reason it worked into words that can be tested, so others now use it
Organised what worked into a hypothesis and tried it on the next deal
Can explain, in their own words, why the result came about
Can point to results, but attributes them to the client or the circumstances
The account of the result stops at reporting it
Sources
How ability is broken down — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, “Vocational Ability Evaluation Standards.” Work is divided into occupation, job, ability unit and ability item, with behaviour that leads to results set out as the standards for job performance. Published for 56 industries; the clerical occupations cover nine occupations and nineteen jobs.
How the levels work — the same standards set four levels (1–4) by the scope of responsibility and the difficulty expected. The five levels above are a restatement to match a five-point score and do not map onto the official four.
The L1–L5 wording — written by us, following that format. It is not officially defined.
Whether this form can be written differently for each role is where AI interview services divide. Where the criteria for sales and for engineering can each be defined as free text, the definitions you already use in performance reviews go straight in.
What to settle
Three things to settle before an experienced hire
01
Whether the criteria split by role
One set across every role, or a separate set for each. How many you can hold, and how freely you can rewrite them, changes which type of service fits.
02
Who owns the first interview
Whether the line manager sits in from the first round, or someone screens ahead of them. If the AI holds it, the manager starts at the second, inheriting the scores with the quotes behind them.
03
Whether it shares the yardstick with performance review
Write the selection criteria in the same words as your performance definitions and the two can be set against each other. You review which hires worked from data, not impression.
Running it
How one opening turns
Experienced hiring runs all year. A turn does not end when the opening closes: it runs back through the review after joining, to the criteria you set for the next opening.
01
Opening the role
Set the criteria for that role. If your performance reviews already define them, load those.
02
First round
Send the URL the day the application arrives. No diary to negotiate, so the first round finishes before other processes do.
03
Handover to the manager
Points worth probing are passed on. The hiring manager reads the remarks behind each score before meeting anyone.
04
Joining and ramp-up
Use the scores from selection to shape onboarding. You already know which criteria were weak, so early support can be narrow.
05
Revising the criteria
Set the scores from selection against the review after joining and see which criteria did the work. Revise them role by role.
To the next opening
Shown as an example: one role’s opening in five stages. Where the lines fall depends on your own selection process.
Stages 4 and 5 only turn when the criteria are yours. A borrowed standard frame still runs the first round, but that frame was built separately from your performance-review system, so it is not the same yardstick as the one used after joining. Adding a new axis when a new role appears is also only possible with criteria you define.
Related pages
More detail, by topic
The threads of experienced hiring run across several pages. Start with whichever is closest to your question.
Hand the first round to AI so hiring managers start at the second. Scheduling and write-ups come off the diary.
When scores differ by interviewer. One set of criteria for everyone, with the reasons on record.
How far you can narrow the field before the interview, when the paperwork is not enough.
How to choose an AI interview tool →
Five layers and six questions. Who holds the criteria changes which service fits.
AI interview services: nine compared →
Nine services in four types, read on questions, criteria and verification, from public information.
Rewrite your criteria, then test them on past interviews →
Re-score past interviews against rewritten criteria. What the full transcript can test, and what it cannot.
Frequently asked questions
Can the criteria differ by role?
They can. Criteria are set per opening, so sales and engineering hold separate definitions. The name of each criterion and the wording of each level are free text, so adding a role does not disturb the axes of the roles already there.
Will hiring managers accept it?
A score on its own does not convince anyone. Each score keeps the remark it rests on, and the recording, so the manager can check it themselves. The AI’s score and the interviewer’s score are recorded separately, and the decision stays with people.
Do we have to use the Vocational Ability Evaluation Standards?
No. The page shows an example built on the format of a published standard. If you already have role-by-role competency definitions, set those as the criteria. Written in the same words as your performance reviews, selection and the review after joining share one yardstick.
Can interviews run in English?
Yes. Interviews run in Japanese and English. An interview held in English can be read in Japanese — both the summary and the reasoning behind each score — so the first round keeps moving even when few people internally interview in English. For other languages, talk to us.
How much shorter does it get, from application to first interview?
There is no diary to negotiate, so the URL can go out the day the application arrives. Candidates choose when to take it, so someone still in a job does not stall.
Is there a minimum volume?
Flex is bought per interview, with a 100-interview minimum, and is the easiest place to start. Around 100 is also where the effect becomes visible. For steady use there is Starter (240 interviews a year), and for higher volumes Growth (500 a year). See pricing
We have not written out criteria for each role yet
You do not need to have them written. We can build them with you, from your performance-review definitions and from what your interviewers actually look at. What matters is that the finished criteria are yours, and that you can rewrite them afterwards.
Tell us which roles you are hiring for, and how you judge them
We will go through your criteria for each role and your current process, and show you where it can be replaced. Free, about 30 minutes.