When it comes down to it, hiring managers only know so much about their open roles. The thing is, while a job analysis would give you insights into the skills and qualifications required for the post, it can’t fully pinpoint the qualities candidates would need to excel in it. In fact, you’d have to possess some experience in the role or working closely with it to have a full understanding of what it requires.
This is why peer interviewing is so important. But it doesn’t end there. The way you conduct these peer interviews also shapes how successful they’d turn out. In this guide, we will explain what peer interviews are, why they are important, and how you can efficiently conduct one to get the best results.
What is a peer interview?
A peer interview is an interview scenario applied during recruitment where the candidate meets with a potential colleague who has worked closely with or formerly held the open role, instead of a hiring manager or recruiter.
Essentially, unlike a traditional in-person interview, the process would be conducted by:
- Any member of the team of which the open role is part.
- A supervisor or manager for the open role.
- An employee who has held the position before.
- A panel including several potential colleagues.
The focus of a peer interview is typically on practical, role-related aspects of the job and the working style within the team. The interviewer may ask about how the candidate handles certain situations, collaborates on projects, or approaches tasks specific to the role.
In many cases, the tone is more conversational compared to traditional interviews with management, since the interaction reflects how the candidate might fit into the team’s daily workflow. During the interview, the assigned colleague takes notes about the candidate’s personality, communication, skills, and overall job fit. Then, once it’s over, they report directly to the recruiter, who then communicates with the candidate on the next steps.
Peer interviews are generally best for:
- Companies adopting a multi-stage interview process
- Teams that value culture fit as part of the criteria for job success
- Businesses that want candidates to get a feel of the job before they hire them.
- Startups and enterprises that want to involve their employees in the company’s hiring/decision-making process
In all, peer interviews allow the hiring managers to learn how well the candidate will perform in the role and work with others on the team, instead of just checking whether or not they can do the job.
Why should you use peer interviews in your recruitment?
With peer interviews, candidates feel more comfortable getting to know the company, recruiters get the information they need to hire right, and employees get to know which candidates will fit in well with their team. But these aren’t the only advantages of using peer interviews. Below, we’ll take a deeper dive into why you should use them in your recruitment process:
1. It allows you to hire candidates who fit your company’s culture
Since peers understand the team’s daily habits, communication styles, and unwritten norms, they can spot early signs of compatibility. This ensures that new hires don’t just meet technical requirements but can also adapt to their new work environment.
Additionally, the candidate is less likely to pretend to impress the recruiter or hiring manager when they’re engaged in a more conversational interview with a potential colleague. This makes it easier to measure whether or not a candidate’s personality, values, and work ethic align with the company’s existing culture.
2. It gives candidates firsthand insight into daily work at the company
Peer interviews bring the people who know the role best into the hiring process. These are the colleagues who handle the same tasks daily, so their perspective is rooted in real experience.
During the interview conversation, even as the interviewer asks the candidate questions to evaluate their fit, they can also provide them with insights into the work the open role does and how they fit into the team’s dynamics.
3. It allows for authentic interaction and communication with your candidates
When candidates interview with hiring managers, they know they’re speaking to the ultimate decision-maker. This feeling can be intense, making most candidates put on a show, calculating every move they make. The result of this is stiff communication and inauthentic responses.
On the other hand, in a peer interview, the mood is more relaxed because the colleague makes it clear they aren’t the hiring manager and guides the candidate in a structured conversation to understand how fit they are for the job. This way, the conversation flows a lot more naturally and communication is improved, allowing for more accuracy in predicting job performance.
4. It fosters team engagement
With 71% of executives saying employee engagement is crucial to their company’s success and 69% of employees affirming this, highlighting that they’d perform better at their job if they were engaged, involving your employees in company processes certainly has its benefits.
Peer interviews are one great way to engage your employees, giving them a platform to contribute their voices to decisions that affect their daily work. This fosters a work environment where your team feels valued and recognized. Team involvement also helps reduce resistance to new hires. In practice, this creates a smoother onboarding process because peers are more motivated to support someone they helped bring into the team.
5. It allows for more balanced candidate evaluation
Peer interviews add another layer of evaluation, creating a more balanced picture of the candidate, especially when you’re hiring for highly specialized roles. While HR interviews can focus on qualifications and emphasize long-term performance, peers can assess immediate, role-specific fit.
This diversity of perspectives helps prevent hiring decisions based solely on credentials or surface-level impressions. It also reduces the chances of overlooking important factors like adaptability, collaboration, or task execution.
How to conduct an effective peer interview
Conducting a successful peer interview takes planning, preparation, and a set structure to ensure the process is fair, consistent, and effective. Below, we’ll show you how you can do this to get comprehensive insights on your candidates and make the right hiring decisions:
Step 1. Prepare for the process
While you’re not going to directly be a part of the interview process, as a recruiter, it’s still crucial for you to prepare ahead of time. In this regard, preparation means clearly defining what the peer interview should accomplish, whether it’s to assess teamwork, technical ability, communication, or cultural alignment.
Then, based on your job analysis and the goal you’ve set, draft a short interview guide that contains structured questions tied directly to the role. In this process, remember to add space for interviewers to take notes and set a simple scoring rubric so evaluations remain consistent.
It helps to include a mix of behaviour-based questions and practical scenarios that mirror daily work. Preparing these in advance prevents peer interviews from feeling random or unstructured and ensures that peers know exactly what to focus on.
Step 2. Select and train the interviewers
Next, pick employees who already work in similar roles or who will collaborate closely with the candidate if hired, and then train them on how the interview will go. To do this, brief these peers on the position’s responsibilities, the candidate’s background, and the interview guide. During your training, let the interviewers understand:
- What’s okay to ask
- What’s not okay to ask
- Body language and communication tips
- How to structure the interview, including a time limit and guidelines for evaluation consistency
- How to wrap up when interviews go overtime
It’s also important to remind them that their role is not to make the final hiring decision but to provide structured feedback.
If you’re using a panel, be sure to choose employees with diverse perspectives. For example, your panel can consist of some people with strong technical knowledge and others with strong people skills. This makes the evaluation more balanced and accurate.
Step 3. Run the interview
When the interview begins, introduce the peers to the candidate, explain the structure, and tell the candidate how long the session will last. You can also assign someone to track the interview’s progress and report back.
Immediately after the interview, give peers five to ten minutes to record their impressions while the discussion is fresh. Encourage them to write down specific examples from the candidate’s answers rather than vague impressions like “good communicator.”
Using the scoring rubric, each peer should assign ratings for each question or competency. Notes should remain objective and evidence-based, focusing on what the candidate said or demonstrated. This ensures that feedback is consistent, measurable, and useful when comparing candidates later.
Step 4. Consolidate feedback and make a decision
The final step is bringing feedback together. At this stage, you collect scoring sheets and notes, then hold a short debrief with the hiring manager, HR, and peer representatives to ensure you have the full picture of each candidate’s capability. During this session, compare scores, highlight examples, and discuss both strengths and gaps in the candidate’s performance.
The goal is not for peers to make the final hiring decision, but to add grounded insights that complement HR’s perspectives. So, once you’ve reached an agreement, inform the candidate about the next steps and thank peers for their involvement, noting any loopholes that require work for future hiring processes.
Common pitfalls to look out for when conducting peer interviews and how to avoid them
Although peer interviewing has undoubted advantages, it can come with several bottlenecks, especially if you’re applying it for the first time. Fortunately, you can avoid these issues with the right strategies and proper implementation. Here, we will explain some of the pitfalls associated with peer interviewing and how to prevent them:
1. Lack of structure
One of the biggest pitfalls in peer interviews is the risk of the process not having a structure, especially when you apply it too early in the candidate evaluation process. This lack of structure can result from going in without a clear framework or interviewing too many candidates.
To avoid this, it’s best to apply the process towards the end of your evaluation process, after other steps in candidate assessment, like skill testing. This reduces the number of candidates peers have to interview, saving you time and ensuring the process doesn’t lose its structure. Also, ensure to start the process with a simple but clear interview guide, including specific questions, timing for each section, and a scoring rubric for consistency.
2. Bias and subjectivity
Peer interviews can easily be influenced by hiring bias, whether conscious or unconscious. For instance, a candidate who shares similar hobbies or history with a peer interviewer might be rated more highly, even if they are not the strongest performer. Similarly, a candidate who is quieter or has a different communication style might be unfairly underrated. As a result, hiring decisions end up being made based on these personal feelings rather than skills.
To reduce this risk, peers should be reminded to focus on the candidate’s actual answers and behaviors. Additionally, it’s important to set a standardized scoring system to ensure that judgments are based on evidence. You can also administer a skill test after the interview to filter applicants and provide extra data for your final decision.
3. Inconsistent candidate experience
In many cases, peer interviews can become inconsistent if the process is not standardized. One candidate might face very technical questions while another might only be asked about teamwork, making it difficult to compare results fairly. This inconsistent candidate experience also harms the company’s image, as candidates may view the process as unfair.
You can prevent this by ensuring all candidates are evaluated according to the same set of standards, structure, timing, question types, and scoring rubric. This creates a level playing field, allows for accurate comparisons, and gives every candidate the same chance to demonstrate their abilities.
4. Feedback that’s too vague
After peer interviews, feedback can come in forms that don’t highlight the candidate’s strengths or aren’t measurable. This happens when the interviewers give generic feedback like “they seemed like a good fit” instead of more specific ones like “they showed more capability with handling technical issues, but not enough time management.”
A solution to this is to encourage peers to note specific examples of what the candidate said or did that led to their impression. Tying these examples to the interview questions or scoring criteria makes feedback practical, actionable, and valuable to the final decision.
After successful peer interviews, what comes next?
Conducting peer interviews is just one step in building a fair recruitment process. While they give valuable insight into performance and culture fit, relying on them alone doesn’t provide a complete picture of a candidate’s capabilities. That’s where Vervoe comes in.
After peer feedback, Vervoe streamlines the next stage with skill assessments that test candidates in real-world scenarios. This ensures those who perform well in interviews can also prove their abilities in practice. Ready to take your peer interviews further? Book a free demo with Vervoe and see how it works.
