A week ago, we read a post from a lawyer interviewing at several firms.

She said she was asked the same question by multiple companies:

“𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴?

For us at Informed Decisions, this question is a BIG NO NO

1. A candidate’s parents have zero predictive value.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s father was a municipal gardener battling alcoholism.

That didn’t predict that his son would become one of the greatest athletes of all time.

Use your interview time for skills, values, behaviors, motivations-not genealogy.

2. The “holistic evaluation” illusion.

I often hear: “We want to understand the whole person.”

It sounds thoughtful-but you’re not getting that in 45 minutes.

You’re getting noise. And with it, bias-not better data.

3. Structured evaluation is more predictive-every time.

Intuition feels powerful. But data says structured, job-relevant assessments win.

Childhood stories and family backgrounds? That’s when reliability drops and bias rises.

If we want fair, consistent, high-quality hiring, we need to focus on what actually predicts success.

👉 Skills.

👉 Behaviors.

👉 Evidence.

Signal-not noise.