I’ve had a total of four interviews up to this point in my life. My first one was for Burgerville When I was a senior in highschool, about 10 years ago so I don’t remember it too well. More recently I have had interviews with construction companies like Knife River, Wildish, and Sierra. Each one felt really different in terms of how structured or effective they were. The Sierra Construction interview honestly didn’t feel like much of an interview at all. It was only 10 minutes, and because they already knew my dad, they just wanted to see if I would be late to the interview. From a hiring standpoint, that’s very low on both reliability and validity. According to The Perfect Hire, reliable interviews should collect consistent info across candidates, and this one didn’t do that at all. No one else applying for the same role would’ve had the same experience as me, which doesn’t make it very fair either. But I’m not complaining because it worked in my favor.
The Knife River interview was much better. It was in front of a panel and included a scenario question about scheduling, which was actually kind of fun. This lined up with the idea from the 7 Practical Ways to Reduce Bias in Your Hiring Process article, where it says work sample tests are one of the best ways to predict job performance. That felt true here and they were more focused on how I thought and less on my background. It was probably the most valid and useful interview I’ve done.
The interview I had with Wildish Construction was more like a conversation than a formal interview. I met with the CEO and the Operations Director, and we just talked for about an hour. They mostly wanted to get to know me as a person, not really test my skills or knowledge. It felt personal and welcoming, which I liked, but looking back it wasn’t very structured. Based on what I’ve learned, that kind of unstructured interview isn’t super reliable because there’s no consistent way to compare candidates. It would’ve been more effective if they added a few standardized questions or a simple work sample to balance the casual dynamic with something more job related.
If I could go back and give advice to these companies, I’d tell Sierra to use more structured interview questions and avoid relying on personal connections. For Wildish, I liked the long conversation with the CEO and Operations Director and it had a relaxed, personal feel, but I would suggest mixing that with a work sample or some standardized questions to make the process more balanced and job focused. Knife River’s interview came closest to what I’ve learned makes an interview effective, with a panel format and a scenario that actually tested my skills. I would tell them all that keeping structure and consistency across their interviews would help reduce bias and help them make better hiring decisions.
