If you're still uncertain after two interviews, the default is not to give them a chance. The default is to get more evidence. There are 10 verification options available before you make an offer: a third interview with a new person, an off-site interview in an informal setting, personality assessments, a live skills assessment, a facility tour, a meet and greet with the team, a job shadow, a Google search, a social media search, and reference checks across multiple relationship types. Most of these don't take much time. All of them reveal how a candidate actually behaves, not just how they present in a formal interview. Actions always speak louder than words.
There's a moment in the hiring process where you've done the interviews, you've gathered information, and you still have a nagging feeling that you're not sure. Maybe you liked some things and saw some red flags you're tempted to ignore. Maybe you just don't have enough to be confident. Most of the time, that uncertainty is telling you something. But it doesn't have to mean starting over. It means getting more evidence.
Part of the ongoing hiring series. This episode covers 10 ways to verify a candidate before making an offer: a third interview with a fresh perspective, an off-site interview, personality assessments, a live skills test, a facility tour, a team meet and greet, a job shadow, a Google search, a social media search, and reference checks. Each one reveals something the formal interview setting can't.
- Never hire someone you're not a hundred percent confident about. There's always some variability with people, but the goal is to get as close to confident as possible before making the offer.
- If you've done two interviews and you're still uncertain, more often than not the answer is no. We want it to be a yes because we feel urgency or we liked some things about them. But uncertainty is information.
- Off-site interviews reveal things formal interviews don't. How someone treats a server, whether they say thank you, how they handle an interruption — that's behavior you can't observe in a conference room.
- When you ask candidates to do something — take a personality test, complete a skills assessment, shadow the team — observe how they do it. How fast they respond, whether you have to follow up, their willingness: that's all evidence too.
- Your team has instincts. After a meet and greet or job shadow, ask them. The people who will actually work with this person often see things you miss when you're running the interview.
- A Google search and a social search take five minutes and can surface inconsistencies you'd never find by asking. What someone says in an interview and what's reported in an article or posted publicly should align.
- Reference checks should come from different types of relationships: personal, professional, coworker, manager, and subordinate. Not three coworkers. Different facets of the same person give you a fuller picture.
What should I do when I'm still uncertain about a candidate after two interviews?
First, sit with the uncertainty for a moment. More often than not, if you've done a screening call and two interviews and you're still not sure, the answer is no. We want it to be a yes because we feel urgency or we liked some things about them. But we then ignore the red flags. Uncertainty after a thorough process is usually telling you something.
But if you truly need more information rather than just a better feeling, there are options. The default is not to give them a chance. The default is to get more evidence. Verify capacity. Verify character alignment. Because the second someone becomes an employee, you are so much more invested in needing that to work out. The cost of a mishire in time, money, energy, morale, and trust is always higher than the cost of taking a little more time up front.
Instead of just offering the job to "give them a chance", take a little extra time to gain a little bit more understanding, to gather a little bit more information so that we have a better verification.
Amy Dardis, Episode 42How do off-site interviews and personality assessments help verify a candidate?
An off-site interview changes the environment but keeps the people the same. Grab coffee, grab lunch, grab dinner. An informal setting. When you share a meal with someone, there are other people around not for work purposes. Wait staff, maybe someone who recognizes you, a sidebar conversation. A completely different environment that facilitates different connection. And in that setting, you're not just observing what they say. You're watching their social awareness, how they treat the people around them, whether they say thank you, how they handle the unplanned moments. That is behavior you cannot observe in a conference room.
Personality assessments are about gleaning information you couldn't get through conversation alone. DISC, Enneagram, StrengthsFinder — each reveals different motivations and thought patterns. But what's equally revealing is how they engage with the process. How willing are they to take the test? How fast do they complete it? Do you have to chase them for it? That's another data point about how they'll show up when asked to do something.
It's not just about what we talk about. It's about what we're observing in the process. We're looking at this person's social awareness, we're looking at their conversation ability, we're looking at how they treat the staff around them.
Amy Dardis, Episode 42What do skills assessments, tours, and job shadows reveal that interviews can't?
Skills assessments and live working sessions verify capacity directly. Does their brain work the way the role requires? Do them in person or via screen share rather than sending a link. With AI making it easier to produce work that isn't organic, watching someone work through problems in real time tells you far more than reviewing what they submitted.
A tour walks them through your environment: your office, operations, facilities. As you walk around, you're watching their curiosity level, the questions they ask, how they engage with the people they meet. Do they seem interested or like it's a waste of time? A 20-minute walkthrough gives you a different picture. It also helps them decide whether they actually want the job, which is information you want before you make an offer.
A job shadow gives them a full day or a couple of hours in the actual role. Put them with a peer or someone who already does the work, not with the decision maker. The dynamic changes. The guard comes down. And you get to see attitude, attention to detail, communication, and engagement across hours, not across a 30-minute interview.
How do Google searches, social media, and reference checks verify a candidate?
A Google search takes five minutes and can surface things you'd never find by asking. I once sat in on a second interview where the candidate had a story about a falling out with a previous business partner. He painted himself as the victim. My red flags were up, but I wanted to believe him. After the interview I Googled his name. The article he'd been referring to came up. Within the first paragraph I could see inconsistencies between what he told us and what had been reported. Deal breaker. We passed. Very good decision.
A social search looks at what they're comfortable posting publicly: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Are they stirring the pot on social? Are they very outspoken on topics that would raise concerns? Does their public story align with who they said they were in the interview? We're just checking: does what they say match what we see?
Reference checks should come from different types of relationships. Not three coworkers. A personal reference, a professional reference, a coworker, a manager, a subordinate, in some combination. Different facets of the same person give you a fuller picture. Have conversations about capacity and character, not just confirmation that the person exists.
Resources mentioned
- Free Interview Questions Download — High-signal questions to dig into character during any verification conversation
- Ep 41 — Interview Red Flags You Should Never Ignore — The signals to watch for before you ever need a third touch point
- Ep 36 — Why You Should Always Do Two Interviews Before Hiring — How the two-interview process is structured before verification begins
Full transcript
When we're going through the interview process, our goal is to make sure we understand the real person we are hiring. A principle I highly encourage you to adopt: never hire someone you are not a hundred percent confident about. There's always a variable when it comes to people, but we want to get as close to confident as possible instead of making an offer where we feel hesitancy and uncertainty. The important thing is verification. What proof do we have that verifies how we feel? What proof do we have that verifies this confidence?
The two things we have to verify are: do they have the capacity to excel in the role? And do they have the character alignment to thrive within your company? That's why I'm a huge believer in always doing two interviews, one for capacity and one for character alignment. But sometimes, even after two interviews, there can still be a little bit of uncertainty. That means we need more verification. Instead of offering the job to quote give them a chance, take a little extra time to gather a little more information. The second they become an employee, you are so much more invested in needing that to work out.
If you've done the screening call and two interviews and you're still not sure, more often than not it's a no. We just want it to be a yes because we feel that pain, or we liked some things about them but there were red flags we then ignored. But we have options. There are 10 things you can do. Most don't take much extra time, but this effort up front is so worth it compared to the cost of a mishire.
Number one: do an additional interview with a new perspective. We've already done interview one and interview two with the same people. If we do a third, bring in a different person. A coworker, an employee, someone who has a really good reading on people. Shake things up. When you bring in a new person, it changes the dynamic. You see how the candidate responds to a different approach, a different personality, a different communication style. And you gain another perspective who will see things you may have missed.
Number two: an off-site interview. Change the environment, keep the people the same. Go off site, grab coffee, grab lunch, grab drinks, grab dinner. An informal setting. Because interviews tend to be very formal, very uncomfortable, very tense. When you go to grab coffee or lunch, you're sharing a meal with someone. There are other people there not for work purposes. Wait staff, maybe people who recognize you. A very different environment that facilitates different connection. And in an off-site interview, it's not just about what you talk about. It's what you're observing. Their social awareness, their conversation ability, how they treat the staff around them. Do they say thank you? Do they open doors? What are the actions you're observing within their behavior?
Number three: have them do a personality assessment. Personality assessments are not about boxing people in. They're about gleaning information you weren't able to get through conversation alone. Some I really like are the DISC, the Enneagram, and the StrengthsFinder. You see different motivations and different thought patterns when you look at all three. But we're going to look at more than just the results. We're also going to observe the person's reaction and actions toward the process. How willing are they to take the test? Is there hesitation? How fast do they get it done? Do you have to follow up and remind them? We are analyzing: does what they say about themselves match how they show up?
Number four: a skills assessment or a live working session. This verifies capacity. Does their brain work the way the role requires? You could send a link and have them fill out an assessment, or you could do a live working session, 30 minutes right there in the room. I recommend the live version more and more. With AI and access to technology, it's getting harder and harder to verify what is someone's organic work versus what's been influenced by AI. Do it in person, or via screen share, so you can actually watch how they work through problems. Again, we're looking at not only the results, but how they react when we ask them to do something. Actions always speak louder than words.
Number five: a tour. Walk them through your environment. Your office, your operations, your facilities. Give them a bigger picture of what's involved in the role and what your company does. And as you walk them through, observe their behavior. What's their level of curiosity? Are they asking questions? Are they engaging with your team members? What are they noticing? What are they not noticing? Do they seem interested or like this is a waste of time? Do they come across as arrogant or as humble? A quick 20-minute walkthrough is going to give you a better picture of who they are. It's also going to help them picture themselves in the role, which helps them better determine if they actually want to say yes.
Number six: a meet and greet. Be very intentional about introducing them to your employees. Pay attention to two things. First: how do they react with your people? Are they striking up conversation organically? Asking questions? Are they able to relate, crack jokes, be comfortable? Is there genuine connection or does it feel tense and awkward? Second: what do your team members feel afterward? They have instincts too, and they are the ones who will be working with this new person. If your people come to you and say he was great, can't wait to have him join, that matters. If they say she came across as kind of arrogant, or she said something that felt off, that matters too. Trust your team. Trust what they tell you.
Number seven: a job shadow. This takes a little more time and scheduling, but it allows them to see a real day-to-day operation. A couple of hours or a full day. What's their level of attention to detail? How's their attitude throughout the day? What was their engagement, their communication, their interest in the type of work? Did they ask questions? Were they easy to talk to? Often on a job shadow day, they're not shadowing the decision maker. We might put them with a peer, or someone who already does the role. The dynamic changes. The guard comes down. It is so much more worth it to verify capacity and character with one job shadow day than to make the offer and invest all that time into onboarding and training only to have things not work out.
Number eight: a quick Google search. Verification through public records. Google their name and their location. What comes up? Any interviews, any articles? Anything that raises questions or points to inconsistencies? I once sat in on a second interview where the candidate had a story about some unhealthy relationships with a previous business partner. He painted himself as the victim. My red flags were on high alert, but I wanted to believe him. After the interview, I Googled his name. The article he'd been referring to came up. Within the first paragraph, I could see that the story he told us was not consistent with what had been reported. Right away: deal breaker. Not truthful about the specifics of the situation. We passed. That ended up being a very, very good decision.
Number nine: a social search. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. What are they posting? What are they comfortable sharing publicly? Are they stirring the pot? Are they very outspoken or controversial on topics? Does their story align with what you see on their social profiles? We're just checking: where is the alignment between what they say and what we see?
Number ten: reference checks. Verification through what other people say. I like to ask for different types of references: a personal reference, a professional reference, a coworker reference, a manager reference, a subordinate reference. Not necessarily all of them, but different combinations. Not three coworker references. Different walks and different facets of their life. Have conversations with those references about capacity and about character, so you can verify that these stories line up and what the candidate said about themselves also aligns with what a reference says about them.
There are 10 options with varying degrees of time and effort. Even if you used all of them, it would pay off every time compared to the cost of bringing on the wrong person. Don't offer anyone a job unless you're a hundred percent confident. If you're unsure, the default is not to give them a chance. The default is to get more evidence. Verify capacity. Verify character alignment.