Aren't "red flags" from the interviewer side pretty obvious? Most interviews are just noise with very little signal.
Some basic red flags:
* Poor ability to self-reflect or demonstrate that they've learned things from their experiences
* Lack of or otherwise poor critical thinking
* Inability to communicate
* Inability to display core competency in the skills required for the job, especially when challenged (I don't do "adversarial" interviewing, but I do throw a lot of spanners into their answers to see if they can vary their approach)
* Inability to demonstrate handling challenges and negative experiences constructively
* Poor decorum - "putting your hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel." There's not always one single thing that becomes a red flag, but things like badmouthing 3rd parties, airing of grievances, extreme arrogance, and so on. The proverbial "Would I like to work with this person?"
The worst candidates know the exact way to act in the interview process. Once they're in, it's really difficult to get them out. I've seen some pretty terrible behaviour, all performed absolutely fine in interviews. So much so that I believe that interviews are only useful to establish basic suitability and that most companies should hire loosely with a long probationary period. Employees that don't perform would be let go.
That is definitely one model. The downside is that people are less likely to go to a company with high turnover (high turnover is a red flag for candidates).
I'm 100% on board with the "would I like to work with this person" criterion, but I wonder how well it fares now, in the age that, at least on the surface of it, wages a crusade against all and every biases. If I am biased against a particular group, I probably wouldn't like to work with a person from that group, would I? How does the "would I like" criterion hold against this?
I completely agree it can be misused - the best way to counteract biases in interviewing is have a standardized process.
So for example, we don't actually phrase it as "Would I like to work with this person?" we just ask for feedback on "General Behavior and Attitude"
If they pass the other components of the interview but fail that one, we usually send them on to a second interview and directly look to confirm or refute the poor behavior / attitude assessment.
We also ask recruiters specifically to reach out between interviews for "small talk" to discern behavioral findings.
In terms of training interviewers, I couch it in terms of decorum and "putting your hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel" and that it's a box-ticking exercise, not a psychological study - that is, 90% or more of the subpopulation of qualified candidates with sustained work history know how to "behave professionally", and this isn't a differentiator.
Different interviewers look for different things. Just watched moneyball, one thing the scouts looked at was the attractiveness of the candidates girlfriend. Low attractiveness equals low confidence and was a mark against the player. If the movie is to be believed, such inane metrics were used be people whose entire job was scouting candidates. I would not be shocked if there are similar dumb metrics used by a hiring manager when hiring candidates may just be one of many roles they perform.
