It is easy to assume that technical proficiency dictates hiring success in a laboratory setting. In practice, however, a candidate's social performance during an interview often carries far more weight than their actual capability at the bench. At the 2026 Lab Manager Leadership Summit panel discussion, “The Lab Leader’s Edge—How to Stay Relevant, Agile, and Respected,” this disconnect surfaced as panelists and attendees reflected on how interview structure can shape what hiring teams think they are evaluating versus what candidates are actually able to demonstrate.
Moving from scripted questions to real-time scenarios
Curtiss McNair Jr., vice president of operations at PanGia Biotech, pointed to the limits of predictable interview questions in revealing real capability. He noted that many common prompts are easily anticipated and rehearsed in advance.
“They tend to be canned. I think the responses tend to be more automatic,” he said. “Somebody’s remembering a response because you can go on TikTok and find nine million of the same interview questions that you guys are using.”
For McNair, that predictability makes it harder to understand how candidates think through problems in real time, which is why he favors a more conversational approach rather than rigid question-and-answer formats. To bypass these rehearsed responses, some participants described the value of shifting toward simulation. Instead of asking standard behavioral questions, they ask candidates to walk through how they would respond to real situations they are likely to encounter in a lab setting. One attendee summarized this practical approach directly: “Here’s a situation you will run into; tell me what you will do.”
By focusing on how a candidate acts rather than what they think an interviewer wants to hear, managers can evaluate how applicants process information, structure decisions, and respond to operational challenges in a technical environment.
Balancing attitude with communication bias
The panel discussion also explored how interview dynamics can shift depending on communication style, creating a thin line between evaluating a candidate's potential and penalizing their personality. Tarshae Drummond, research technician and lab manager at Fayetteville State University, highlighted the role of attitude alongside technical skill in hiring decisions.
“It’s all about attitude,” Drummond said, explaining that while technical abilities can easily be taught on the bench, an individual's core mindset and intrinsic willingness to learn are what a manager must prioritize. In a technical lab environment, this means defining "attitude" through specific, operational traits such as accountability, curiosity, and receptiveness to feedback.
However, relying on subjective measures like "attitude" or "culture fit" can introduce significant hiring bias. During the session, an attendee who identified as autistic described how differences in expression can be misread in hiring contexts. When evaluators rely on subjective impressions of engagement, eye contact, or perceived “likability” when assessing fit, neurodiverse talent is often unfairly filtered out. If "good attitude" is evaluated through a purely neurotypical social lens, laboratories risk losing elite technical talent simply because a candidate doesn't engage in standard social masking.
To prevent this, the exchange underscored an important takeaway: while assessing attitude is vital, it must be decoupled from conversational chemistry. To evaluate these traits objectively, managers should use targeted behavioral questions rather than relying on a general feel. For example, to assess a candidate's actual accountability and openness to critique—rather than their social performance—an interviewer might ask: “Tell me about a time an assay failed or yielded unexpected data. What steps did you take to troubleshoot, and how did you incorporate feedback from your team?”
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What interview design actually measures
Throughout the session, panelists and attendees returned to a shared operational concern: traditional interviews evaluate an applicant's capacity to navigate discussion-based conditions as much as they evaluate actual technical ability. McNair’s critique of scripted questioning, Drummond’s focus on attitude, and the audience's perspective on communication differences all point to the fact that what interviews reveal depends heavily on format.
To build a more resilient workforce, managers must restructure their evaluation tools. Relying on conversational comfort levels creates a narrow hiring filter. By replacing predictable, script-heavy questions with standardized, situational problem-solving scenarios, laboratories shift the focus back to objective competence. Grounding the interview in practical, operational reality ensures that hiring outcomes are determined by a candidate's actual cognitive capability and technical logic rather than their performance in a high-stress social exercise.
This article was created with the assistance of Generative AI and has undergone editorial review before publishing.
