Turn a job description into an interview.

Most job descriptions already contain the questions for a first interview. They’re just buried among the perks and the company history. If you know what to look for, you can turn a job description into skills, levels, weights, questions and a pass mark in about ten minutes. This guide walks through the steps using one realistic example from start to finish.

The example job description

Here’s the part of the job description that matters. Everything else, like benefits and the company story, doesn’t change the interview.

We’re hiring an operations coordinator to keep our same-day deliveries running in Pune. You’ll plan daily routes with the dispatch team, handle driver and customer escalations, track on-time performance in spreadsheets, and report issues to the operations manager. You have one to two years in operations, logistics or a similar role, you’re comfortable with Excel or Google Sheets, and you communicate clearly in English and Hindi. Experience with route-planning software is a plus. Shift: 7am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday.

Step 1: Sort the job description into three groups (2 minutes)

Read it once and put every requirement into one of three piles.

Logistics are facts a candidate either meets or doesn’t. They become screening questions, not interview questions:

• Can you work 7am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday? (Yes / No)
• Are you based in Pune, or willing to relocate? (Yes / No)
• When could you start? (Short text)

Must-haves are what the person needs in their first month. They become skills:

• Planning a day under pressure
• Handling problems raised by drivers and customers
• Working with data in spreadsheets
• Communicating clearly

Nice-to-haves don’t belong in the first interview. Route-planning software experience is useful but learnable, so leave it out or ask about it later.

One more check: is there anything you can’t hear in a conversation? Spreadsheet speed is one. The interview can show whether someone understands how to use data to find a problem. It can’t show how fast they build a pivot table. Save that for a short practical task in the second interview.

Step 2: Set levels and weights (3 minutes)

For each skill, decide the level you expect and how much it counts. The level comes from the experience you asked for. One to two years usually means intermediate, not advanced.

Weights are relative, so these could just as well be 7, 6, 4 and 3. The point is the order: the skill you’d least like to compromise on should carry the most weight. If two skills feel equally important, give them equal weight rather than worrying over a five-point difference.

A note on language. The job description asks for English and Hindi. Let candidates answer in either, and if speaking a specific language matters for the role, make it a named skill so it’s scored openly. Don’t let grammar or accent quietly lower the scores for other skills.

Step 3: Write the questions (3 minutes)

Aim for one or two questions per skill, each about a situation the person will actually face. Five questions is enough for this role:

1. Planning: “It’s 8:30am. Two drivers have called in sick and 40 deliveries are promised before noon. Walk me through the next half hour.”
2. Driver and customer problems: “A customer calls, angry that their parcel is three hours late, and asks for a refund you’re not allowed to give. What do you say?”
3. Driver and customer problems, and communication: “Tell me about a time a driver or colleague pushed back on a plan you’d made. What happened?”
4. Data: “On-time deliveries dropped last week in one part of the city. How would you find out why, using the data you have?”
5. Communication: “Explain to a new driver how the day’s route plan works, as if they start tomorrow.”

Notice what’s missing: “Tell me about yourself”, “What’s your greatest weakness” and anything a candidate could answer by reading their résumé aloud. Each question gives the candidate a chance to show one of the skills in the table.

If you’re stuck, writing pre-screening questions has patterns that work for most roles, and the screening questions library has sets for common jobs.

Step 4: Choose the format and pass mark (2 minutes)

Format. This is a spoken job, so audio-only is enough. With follow-ups, five questions takes roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Use an AI-led interview if you want follow-up questions on short or vague answers, or scripted if you need every candidate to hear exactly the same words.

Pass mark. The pass mark is the minimum score. It decides who lands in your review list and who is set aside. For your first group of candidates, pick a middle-of-the-road number, then read a sample of candidates on both sides of it. If good people are landing below, lower it. If your review list is full of weak candidates, raise it. Setting a pass mark covers this in detail.

Check it before you share it

Before the link goes out, spend one more minute on these:

• Every skill has at least one question behind it.
• Every question maps to a skill. If one doesn’t, cut it.
• The levels match the experience in the job description.
• Nothing asks about personal life or protected characteristics, such as age, religion or disability.
• The screening questions cover the hours, location and start date.
• Read the questions aloud. If one takes more than one breath, shorten it.

In LessRounds, pasting a job description gets you suggested skills and draft questions, so most of the ten minutes goes on editing rather than writing. Without a pass mark, it sends scores of 50 and above to review and sets the rest aside, and nobody is emailed about the outcome unless your team sends an email. See the interview builder for how the steps above map to the screen.