The Interview Is the First Day of Onboarding: How Feedback During Hiring Builds the Culture You Want
The way you communicate with candidates during the interview process provides an early preview of your expectations, leadership approach, and team culture.
Most nurse leaders treat the hiring interview as a one-directional assessment. The candidate is evaluated, a decision is made, and feedback is withheld until after a formal offer or rejection.
It is the standard approach. For many leaders, it never occurs to them that this may be a missed opportunity.
Here is the reframe: the interview is not simply the end of the selection process. It is the beginning of the relationship.
How you conduct that interview communicates more about your leadership and your unit’s culture than almost anything you will say after that person is hired.
What you model in the interview room establishes an early expectation for what life on your team may actually look like.
Why Feedback During the Interview Process Matters
Transparency and consistent communication are foundational to psychological safety—the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking (Edmondson, 1999).
Psychological safety does not suddenly begin on the first day of employment. It is signaled much earlier, in the small moments when a leader chooses honesty over comfort.
Providing appropriate real-time feedback during an interview may include explaining what you are listening for, acknowledging when a candidate’s answer did not fully address the question, and giving the candidate an opportunity to respond again.
This sends several early messages:
- We give feedback here, and we communicate it directly.
- We are transparent about our expectations.
- We believe people can grow, and we discuss gaps when we identify them.
For candidates who are right for the team, this approach provides a preview of the culture they are considering joining.
For candidates who are not selected, clear and respectful communication is a professional courtesy that can preserve the relationship regardless of the outcome.
What Real-Time Interview Feedback Looks Like
Real-time feedback does not require constant commentary or unnecessary interruptions. It means that when a candidate repeatedly misses the behavioral quality you are assessing, the leader explains what is missing clearly and respectfully.
“I want to pause for a moment because I am asking these questions for a specific reason. On this unit, accountability means owning mistakes quickly and bringing a possible solution to the conversation.”
“I have heard you describe situations in which something went wrong, but I have not yet heard how you personally contributed to the resolution. Can you answer the question again with that perspective in mind?”
This approach accomplishes three things simultaneously:
- It gives the candidate a fair opportunity to respond.
- It clarifies the leader’s expectations.
- It models the kind of direct communication the leader wants within the team.
Do not make candidates guess what you are evaluating.
The purpose of an interview is not to catch someone providing the wrong answer. It is to determine how the person thinks, responds, learns, and aligns with the needs of the team.
When appropriate, give candidates enough information to demonstrate whether they can adjust. Their response to clear feedback may reveal more than their original answer.
Delivering the Decision With the Same Transparency
One of the most consistently avoided conversations in nursing leadership is the rejection call. Many leaders delay it, delegate it, or allow the decision to be communicated impersonally through an automated system.
The discomfort is understandable. Few leaders enjoy delivering disappointing news.
However, the way a candidate is informed that they were not selected communicates as much about the leader’s culture as the interview itself.
Research on organizational justice—particularly procedural and interactional justice—shows that individuals tend to respond more positively to unfavorable outcomes when they believe the process was fair and they were treated with dignity (Colquitt et al., 2001; Greenberg, 1990).
In practical terms, leaders should consider:
- Delivering rejection decisions personally when possible rather than relying entirely on an automated system.
- Being appropriately specific about what was observed and what the team needed.
- Avoiding vague explanations such as “it was not the right fit” when more useful feedback can be provided.
- Offering constructive developmental feedback candidates can apply in future interviews or roles.
- Closing the conversation in a way that leaves the professional relationship intact.
Healthcare is a small professional community. A candidate who is not right for one unit today may be well suited for another role—or may become an excellent candidate after additional development.
Addressing a concern during the interview
When a concern emerges during the conversation, it may be appropriate to address it while the interview is still active.
“I want to be honest with you. I am not yet hearing what I need regarding this particular quality, and I want to be transparent about that before we close.”
This statement does not have to be unkind or confrontational. It can model the honest communication culture that strong nursing teams require.
The Connection Between Feedback Culture and Nurse Retention
Research on nurse retention consistently identifies the quality of the nurse-manager relationship as a significant influence on whether nurses remain with an organization or consider leaving (Laschinger et al., 2009; Cowden et al., 2011).
The quality of that relationship is shaped, in part, by how feedback moves between the leader and the team.
Units where feedback is withheld until annual performance reviews—or is rarely provided at all—create environments in which nurses may struggle to understand expectations, develop professionally, or correct concerns before they become larger problems.
High performers may also begin to disengage when they no longer feel challenged, recognized, or supported in their development.
In contrast, units where feedback is specific, timely, respectful, and genuinely focused on growth create clearer conditions for development and retention.
By embedding feedback into the hiring process, the leader is not merely assessing a candidate. The leader is beginning to model what working on the team may actually feel like.
Candidates who respond well to clear expectations and developmental feedback may lean into that environment. Candidates who strongly resist that approach may decide the culture is not right for them.
Building a Feedback-Forward Hiring Process
Practical Leadership Actions
-
Define the behavioral anchors.
Before each interview, identify the two or three behaviors you are primarily assessing. Clarify what a strong response and a concerning response would sound like. -
Build in an opportunity for clarification.
Redirect an incomplete answer, clarify the intent of a question, or affirm a behavior the candidate demonstrated effectively. -
Use structured panel criteria.
Debrief using the agreed-upon behavioral criteria rather than allowing general impressions or personality preferences to dominate. -
Prepare for rejection conversations.
Develop a clear, respectful communication approach. Practice the conversation when needed. -
Track the reasons candidates are not selected.
Over time, this information can reveal whether interview questions are assessing the intended qualities and where recurring candidate gaps exist.
The Leader’s Role: Model What You Expect
Nurse leaders who struggle to give feedback to candidates may experience the same difficulty when providing feedback to their teams.
Many leaders learned early in their careers that feedback was either a weapon used after something went wrong or a formality completed during a performance review. They may never have experienced feedback as an investment in professional growth.
Breaking that pattern requires intentional practice.
Leaders who are frequently described as honest, fair, and trustworthy are often those who provide clear feedback while still demonstrating respect and genuine concern for the person receiving it.
That kind of leadership does not begin after someone officially joins the team.
It begins the first time the candidate meets the leader.
Final Thought
The interview is more than a mechanism for determining whether a candidate can perform the job.
It is the first opportunity to show candidates how expectations are communicated, how gaps are addressed, and whether growth is genuinely supported.
Hiring with intention means evaluating the candidate while also allowing the candidate to experience the leadership culture they are being invited to join.
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Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425–445.
Cowden, T., Cummings, G., & Profetto-McGrath, J. (2011). Leadership practices and staff nurses’ intent to stay: A systematic review. Journal of Nursing Management, 19(4), 461–477.
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
Greenberg, J. (1990). Organizational justice: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Journal of Management, 16(2), 399–432.
Laschinger, H. K. S., Finegan, J., & Wilk, P. (2009). Context matters: The impact of unit leadership and empowerment on nurses’ organizational commitment. Journal of Nursing Administration, 39(5), 228–235.
