How to Respond to Candidates During Interviews

Dec 3, 2025

Blog, HR and Recruiting Industry Information, Recruiting Best Practices

The rapport established in an interview, whether in-person or via video call, can be a huge determining factor in the possibility of a future working relationship. It’s up to the hiring staff to set the tone for communication. Here are some ideas on how to respond to candidates during interviews.

There are various verbal and non-verbal responses to employ while sitting with candidates during interviews.

Non-verbal Responses

Active listening

Psychology research into effective communication teaches us that active listening “requires de-centering from one’s fixed position to be fully present with another.” Developing this habit in an interview setting shows empathy and helps the other person see you’re engaged and value what they have to say. Active listening techniques include:

Eye contact: a good rule of thumb is to maintain eye contact for 50 to 70 percent of the conversation, or about 5 seconds at a time
Non-verbal cues: pay attention to the other person’s non-verbal cues. Talking quickly may imply anxiety; folding arms or leaning away may imply discomfort
Patience: Avoid interrupting, and give the person time to formulate their response, even if there is some silence
Withhold judgment: active listening validates the other person’s experience rather than inserting your own opinions or quick reactions

Emotional intelligence

Responding to interview questions with high emotional intelligence can put the candidate at ease and promote a comfortable, conversational atmosphere. It helps you respond appropriately to any potential emotional response to an interview question. First credited to Mayer and Solvey, the principles of emotional intelligence include:

Perception and expression of emotion: understanding your own emotional responses, picking up on the emotions of others, and the ability to discern between emotions
Using emotion to facilitate thought: recognizing how you incorporate emotions into your own reasoning and when it’s most useful
Understanding and analyzing emotions: the ability to make sense of emotions and decode their meaning, especially in relation to each other
Reflective regulation of emotion: being open to emotional responses and the ability to regulate them appropriately

Demeanor

Interviews help both the company and the candidate decide if they will be a good fit. Those doing the interview can help make a good impression with their professional demeanor. Inviting body language includes a warm smile, sitting with arms loose, not folded, and an upright posture. During the discussion, keep phones out of sight and use affirming body language, such as nodding or leaning towards the person. Taking notes is appropriate, and it may be worth mentioning this to the candidate at the beginning of the interview, inviting them to do the same. A pen and paper can help you remain physically engaged and avoid fidgeting.

Verbal Responses

Restate

Restating key points in an interview answer shows you are listening and ensures you understand the candidate’s response to your questions. For example, “It sounds like you found collaborative work in the office more rewarding than remote, am I correct about that?” Restating is an organic way to ask for clarity on a point and to expand on the conversation. It helps you emphasize key aspects of a response and reveal their value.

Follow-up questions

Similar to restating, good follow-up questions demonstrate your engagement and allow the candidate to continue discussing an important subject. While preparing the interview questions, you can also prepare possible follow-up questions. The candidate’s response will determine whether you ask them, but for more common interview questions, they may prove useful. For example, “What do you consider to be your biggest professional achievement?” could lend itself to “Can you talk about your process to achieve that?”

For in-the-moment follow-up questions, jot down key phrases or words from the candidate’s response that help you formulate an appropriate question.

Clarify intent

Some responses might reveal that your question wasn’t crafted well enough to get the response you want. You can use language here that helps clarify your intent. For example, if you asked, “How do you handle stress?” and got a response about hanging out with friends and taking their dog on a walk, you could say, “My intent in asking you was to find out how you handle work stress specifically, which I didn’t make clear. Can you talk about a particularly stressful situation at work and how you handled that?”

Connection to previous answers

Another form of restating is connecting a response to an earlier answer in a positive way. For example, a candidate’s response to “What are your greatest strengths?” might be “I can solve problems when they happen. I know how to remain calm in a crisis.” They may have told you previously about a time when they solved a problem. You could say, “That experience you mentioned earlier, when you had the software glitch at the conference, seems to demonstrate that. Can you talk a little more about your problem-solving process then?”

Commit to answering questions

If the candidate asks a question you can’t answer in the moment, commit to a date or time by which you will get back to them with the answer. For example, “Thanks for your interest in the specifics. I don’t have those figures readily available, but someone will email you a response by the end of the week.”

How to Handle Tension

Sometimes, there’s unexplained awkwardness in an interview. Despite our best efforts to schedule around them, life presents challenges that may arise during an interview. We may bring a bad mood to the room, which has nothing to do with the candidate. Here are some ways to address awkwardness or tension.

Allow for silence. This incorporates an important principle of emotional intelligence. Allowing the candidate some time to formulate a response or gather their emotions shows empathy and understanding. Say “It’s okay” “We understand” or “Take your time” to help the person feel comfortable. You may need to take a longer break and give them a few minutes, or even reschedule. Even if the interview experience reveals them not to be the right candidate for the job, acknowledging each other’s humanity is always an appropriate reaction.
Circle back. If a candidate has a noticeably strange, short, or awkward response to a question, rather than responding with a terse smile and moving on, say something like “It seems like that question may have caught you off guard. I’d like to circle back to it later in case you have anything more you’d like to add. For now, let’s go to the next question.”
Acknowledge the tension. Another principle of emotional intelligence is naming the emotion you’re feeling and acknowledging when it’s affecting an interaction. If the candidate is a promising prospect but the interview just isn’t going well, you could say something like, “I feel like we have gotten off on the wrong foot. I may have brought some negativity in with me, and I want you to know it’s not your fault. I’m going to reset, and I’d like us to continue with more positive energy.”

Job interviews can be stressful for both the interviewer and the candidate. With plenty of preparation and good listening skills, you can improve your interview responses.

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