Interviewing “Wrapped”: Key Trends & Insights From 100K Interviews
In 2024, our customers conducted nearly 100K interviews with Pillar. As the year came to a close, we pulled back the curtain to share a “behind-the-scenes” look at some of the most compelling trends and insights these interviews revealed.
In our first webinar of the year, we put our CEO, Mark Simpson, in the hot seat and brought our Interviewing "Wrapped" guide to life. Why? Because interviews are a treasure trove of information, and the insight we can gain from them is pretty fascinating.
Check out the full 1-hour webinar below or read on for a brief synopsis of the 4 topics that were covered.
We started the conversation with a poll on if the audience believes gender bias plays a role in hiring decisions at their organizations. To no surprise, almost half the audience (41%), said "occasionally".
And with that, we kicked off the first topic…
Gender Differences & Bias In Hiring
Mark has written extensively on this topic, with his blogs earning more impressions than any others—a clear indicator of just how important this issue is. Here are some surprising insights we've uncovered:
- 25% of interviews contain bias, primarily related to protected characteristics such as age or marital status
- Bias often arises during excessive small talk, with some interviewers spending up to half the interview off-topic
- Women face unique challenges, being asked 20% more questions while given 25% less time to respond
So, what can TA teams do to address bias? A substantial amount of it can be eliminated by carefully planning the interview process. This involves:
- Defining key skills to assess candidates effectively
- Creating structured interview guides to ensure consistency
- Assigning specific questions to individual interviewers for clarity
- Collecting real-time feedback during the interview
- Providing training for interviewers to recognize and reduce bias
The good news? AI can help streamline and automate this entire process.
Additional reading on this topic: One In Four Interviews Are Biased, Analyzing Gender Differences In Interview Data, & Follow Up: Analyzing Gender Differences In Interview Data
Candidate Experience In Interviews
Bringing the ability to measure candidate experience in interviews within our product was actually inspired by one of our customers. They discovered their top engineer—sent to interview engineering candidates—was actually discouraging candidates from accepting offers. This highlighted the critical need to proactively identify strong and weak interviewers and understand when candidates are having positive or negative experiences during the interview process.
Some notable trends we’ve observed related to candidate experience in interviews include:
- 15% of interviewers struggle to effectively pitch the role
- 25% of interviewers fail to communicate company culture well
- 45% of candidates are unlikely to take the role they’re interviewing for
- Women often hesitate to discuss compensation
- Men tend to avoid discussing failures or weaknesses
- Candidates generally feel more comfortable with interviewers of the same gender or race
Why is measuring candidate experience so important? Because interviewing is also a sales job. You want candidates to leave each interview feeling positive—sharing their experience with friends and writing glowing reviews on Glassdoor. Ultimately, delivering a great candidate experience is essential for attracting top talent.
Additional reading on this topic: What Are Your Candidates Really Thinking In Interviews?
Common Interview Benchmarks
If you search Google for advice on how many questions to ask candidates, how long interviews should last, and other best practices, you’ll find plenty of suggestions—but most are based on guesses and opinions. There’s little data-driven guidance rooted in analyzing thousands of interviews to uncover what truly works. This is why we often get asked about the best way to structure and run an effective interview.
We even polled our audience on their biggest interviewing "pet peeves," and the responses ranged from surprising to familiar:
- Driving during the interview
- Chewing gum or vaping
- Delayed feedback from hiring managers
- Asking candidates the same questions across multiple rounds
...and many more.
Here are some key learnings:
- Avoid 30-minute interviews (except for recruiter screens). Interviews should last at least 45 minutes, with 60 minutes being ideal for a deep dive into the candidate’s pivotal skills for the role.
- Recommended structure for a 45-60 minute interview:some text
- 5 minutes of small talk to ease nerves (but watch out for unconscious bias)
- 30-35 minutes focused on assessing 5-7 key skills relevant to the role
- 7-10 minutes for the candidate to ask their questions
Mark’s top advice: always hold an intake meeting before starting the process, and ensure feedback is captured live during the interview. This creates actionable data to identify the best candidate.
Additional reading on this topic: Debunking Common Interview Benchmarks
What Matters Most To Candidates
We often invest significant time and effort into filling our candidate pipeline, but how often do we stop to consider what candidates truly want from us? One of the most overlooked aspects of the hiring process is preparing for interviews—anticipating the questions candidates might ask and knowing how to answer them effectively.
In our blog (linked below), we dive into this topic for various common roles that go through Pillar, including sales, engineering, marketing, and customer success, and others. Here are a few of the most common candidate questions where interviewers often have mixed success in providing clear and compelling answers:
- What does the work-life balance look like?
- Tell me more about your company culture.
- How do you show recognition and appreciation for your employees?
Additional reading on this topic: Decoding Candidates’ Most Frequently Asked Questions
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With that, we wrapped things up with some of the data that’s to come in 2025! Be sure to follow our blog for monthly updates.
Huge thanks to Mark for being the first Pillar team member we’ve ever interviewed on our webinar series! Don't forget to check out the entire webinar linked above to uncover even more of the data concerning these 4 areas.
And see you on February 19th for our next webinar! We’ll be joined by Lydia Wu, Founder & Creator of “Oops, Did I Think That Out Loud?” who will walk us through how to bridge the gap between AI excitement and AI execution. You can register for that live conversation here.
