A good interviewer is someone that can analyze an applicant’s suitability for a role without any implicit or explicit bias getting in the way.
From the job seeker’s side, this can look like the person had no “chemistry” with them at all. They should appear interested in your answers, but otherwise unreadable emotionally.
If they’re really good at what they do, you shouldn’t have any “sense” from them on how you did.
Too often, inexperienced interviewers (and even the experienced ones) fall into the “familiarity trap.”
They will hear something from you, it will spark a memory in them and you’ll start reminiscing together about something. That’s explicit bias – by creating a bond with this candidate, your brain subconsciously tells you that they are “better” than another candidate because you have a familiarity. That is incredibly hard to overcome, because your explicit bias has created an implicit one – a subconscious one.
An inexperienced interviewer won’t even realize that they are recommending the candidate that went to their college over the person that didn’t even though they have roughly the same experience level.
A good interviewer will take into account the whole person, will give you a fair assessment, and when comparing candidates will identify any explicit biases as things for someone else to cross-check.
Perhaps their college is actually better than the other candidate’s. Let someone else who is not emotionally invested make that particular call.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/What-makes-a-good-job-interviewer
Originally Posted On: 2016-02-20