A two-step interview process, a short informal screen followed by a structured formal interview: filters unqualified candidates fast and gives you real signal on the ones who move forward. Here's how to run both stages, how to decide who advances, and how GHP runs this entire process for you.
What's the Difference Between an Informal and Formal Interview?
An informal interview is a short, low-pressure screening call, usually 15 to 20 minutes, used to confirm the basics: experience, availability, and whether the candidate's story matches their application. It's a filter, not a full evaluation, and it exists to protect your time from being spent on candidates who were never actually qualified.
A formal interview is longer, structured, and in-depth. It's where you test technical knowledge, run behavioral questions, and make the actual hiring decision. Skipping straight to formal interviews for every applicant wastes hours on candidates who were never qualified to begin with, which is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes in construction hiring.
Many construction companies run only one type of interview and wonder why either their time-to-fill is too slow or their quality of hire is inconsistent. The two-stage approach exists specifically to solve both problems at once- speed at the top of the funnel, rigor at the bottom.
How Do You Run a Strong Informal Screening Call?
Keep it short and direct. Verify years of experience, specific equipment or material familiarity, and licensing where relevant. Ask one or two questions tied to your actual project types, not generic small talk that tells you nothing about whether this person can do the job.
The goal is simple: does this person have the basic qualifications to move forward, yes or no. Save the deep evaluation for the formal stage. A well-run informal interview should disqualify roughly as many candidates as it advances; if you're advancing nearly everyone, the screening questions aren't specific enough.
Consistency matters here too. Use the same core questions for every candidate applying to the same role, so you're comparing apples to apples rather than relying on gut feel that shifts from one screening call to the next.
When Should a Candidate Move to a Formal Interview?
Advance candidates based on relevant experience, likely cultural fit, and clear motivation for the role. Tell candidates the outcome directly and promptly either way, moving forward or not. Direct communication here protects your reputation with every candidate who talks to other tradespeople in your market, and construction is a smaller industry than it looks from the inside.
Ghosting candidates, even ones you're not moving forward with, has real reputational cost. Word travels fast in local trades communities, and a construction company known for poor candidate communication will see it reflected in application volume within a year.
How Do You Structure a Strong Formal Interview?
Set the scene professionally — the space should reflect how your company actually operates. Ask questions tied to real job challenges, not hypotheticals. A useful technique: start with the candidate's most recent experience and work backward, which requires more genuine, less rehearsed answers than starting from their earliest jobs.
Use role-play scenarios for behavioral insight — for example, how they'd handle an unexpected delay. That tells you more about crisis management and communication style than a resume ever will, and it surfaces how a candidate actually thinks under pressure rather than how they describe themselves in the abstract.
Document your findings from every formal interview using consistent criteria, even if it's a simple scorecard. This makes the final hiring decision more objective and gives you a real record to compare candidates against, rather than relying on memory a week after multiple interviews have blurred together.
How TCC Runs This Process for You
As part of the GHP (Great Hiring Partner) hiring funnel, we run the informal screen on every applicant before a candidate ever reaches your calendar. You only spend time on formal interviews with people who've already cleared the bar, which means every hour you spend interviewing is an hour spent on someone genuinely worth considering.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should an informal interview take?
15 to 20 minutes is standard. It's a screening call, not a full evaluation, long enough to verify the basics, short enough to move quickly through a candidate pool without burning excessive time.
Should the same person run both the informal and formal interview?
It can work either way, but many construction companies use a screener for the informal stage and hiring managers or ownership for the formal stage, since the goals of each stage are different.
What's the biggest mistake companies make in construction interviews?
Running a full formal interview with every applicant instead of screening first. It burns hours on candidates who were never qualified and slows down your overall time-to-fill.
