How to Decide Between Two Great Candidates?
Recruiters are often faced with the dilemma of choosing between two great candidates. The difference is rarely visible at the resume level. Both candidates may meet the qualifications. Both may interview well. The real differentiator lies in depth – how clearly they articulate impact, how consistently they demonstrate core competencies, and how closely their strengths align with role-critical outcomes. So, the hiring decision needs to be made with careful consideration. But how would you choose the one for the role? Let’s talk about certain factors that can help you choose the best candidate for the job and whether you should consider choosing both.
Factors to Consider When Deciding Between Two Great Candidates
As you narrow down your options to two exceptional candidates, the decision gets harder. You might want to consider various factors, from experience to cultural-fit, and evaluate how well each aligns with the potential for growth within the organization. Here’s a breakdown of everything to consider:
Company Values and Culture Fit
For a candidate to adapt well in your organization and start performing early, their values and ethics must match. This can make or break a hire. To assess which of the candidates fits better, share some practical scenarios that match your company’s values and culture and ask them how they’d approach such situations, balancing personal and organizational goals. If applicable, ask them to share examples from their previous work to help you gauge how their experience reflects their values. Ask questions that revolve around the non-negotiable core values.
This will help you grasp the genuine driving force behind the candidates’ interest in the job. Is it the position itself, the industry, or the desire for positive change? Those with natural motivation tend to be more dedicated. A candidate who displays enthusiasm for the primary responsibilities and potential challenges is more likely to thrive. Compare how well the candidates’ values and motivations resonate with those of the company. This approach assists in making an equitable decision, helping select the candidate whose values and motivations best align with both the role and the company.
For instance, if ‘collaboration’ is a key value you’re looking for, ask about their experience when they’ve successfully worked with diverse teams. Or, list a few company values and let candidates rank them according to what they consider important. Discuss why they chose their rankings and how it relates to their own beliefs.
Hire with a Future-Oriented Outlook
As organizations grow, the employees need to grow with it and adapt to changing business requirements to ensure success. So, understanding how your top candidates handle challenges beyond their expertise and skills, and their approach to solving them, becomes essential. This reflects whether they can quickly learn new things and adapt to them. Talk about their vision for their role and the company for the next 5 to 10 years.
Ask if they’ve made existing processes work better, how they did it, and what the outcome was like. It shows their problem-solving capabilities and whether they’re action-oriented. Talk about the new technology, tools, and trends in the industry and how they’ll use them to stay competitive. Your next best employee should show high adaptability, be open to leverage latest technology to improve performance at work, and be goal-oriented to ensure success in the role.
Simulate Real-World Job Scenarios
One-way video interviews are an efficient tool to simulate real job challenges while maintaining fairness, structure, and consistency. Both candidates answer the same questions under the same circumstances, which helps level the playing field and surface key performance differences.
Start with scenario-based video questions that reflect actual job challenges. For example, present a client escalation, a missed deadline, a cross-functional conflict, or a technical roadblock. Ask candidates to explain how they would respond, what steps they would prioritize, and why. Integrate ethical dilemmas into the scenario challenges, like how they would respond if a client requested something that violates policy? These questions test integrity, judgment, and alignment with company values – critical differentiators when candidates are otherwise equally skilled.
Incorporate multi-format questions to evaluate skills holistically, like written responses to test subject-matter knowledge, video or audio responses to assess communication skills, executive presence and interaction ability, game-based assessments to measure analytical reasoning, and coding challenges to evaluate hands-on technical proficiency.
When both candidates complete the same multi-format, job-relevant assessment, you move beyond subjective impressions to identify the better candidate.
Leverage Smart, Data-backed Insights
Instead of relying on memory, handwritten notes, or subjective impressions, leverage AI-generated interview summaries to closely evaluate each candidate’s responses into structured insights. Smart summaries help surface patterns that might otherwise be missed – such as repeated examples of leadership ownership, vague problem-solving explanations, or strong technical depth but limited collaboration signals.
Beyond summaries, leverage smart side-by-side comparisons with Jobma’s AI intelligence to contrast how both candidates demonstrated competencies such as stakeholder management, analytical thinking, or adaptability. Review AI scoring across structured interview criteria to identify who provided stronger evidence and scored higher. When both candidates seem impressive, these structured comparisons can help prevent “gut feel” from dominating the decisions.
You’re using AI not to sharpen your judgement, not replace it. By consolidating skills, experience, and interview performance into data-backed insights, you ensure that the final choice is based on evidence, alignment, and long-term potential.
Get Peer Opinion
If it’s still undecided, consider collaborating with team members who are familiar with the role that you’re hiring for. Share candidate information such as their resumes, experience, key skills, and interview notes, as well as the responsibilities and challenges associated with the job position.
Get their feedback and why they might consider one over the other. Combine the input of your advisors, the evaluation from your assessments, and your judgment to decide on the better candidate.
Why Not Choose Both Candidates?
When you meet two outstanding candidates, it can feel counterintuitive to choose just one. After all, strong talent is hard to find. But in most cases, hiring for a role is not just about talent availability – it is about organizational structure, resource allocation, and long-term clarity. Unless there is a clear business need to expand the team, selecting one candidate is often the more sustainable decision. Here’s why:
Thoughtful Resource Allocation
Hiring is a long-term investment, not just a short-term win. According to SHRM, the average cost-per-hire in the U.S. is around $4,700, and an increased employment cost – including benefits, payroll taxes, onboarding, and equipment – significantly increases that figure. Beyond financial impact, every new hire also requires training support and time to settle.
When two people are hired for one role without a clearly expanded scope of work, the organization absorbs:
- Additional salary and benefits costs
- Onboarding and training resources
- Technology licenses and equipment expenses
- Increased managerial oversight
If workload projections or business growth justify expanding the team, hiring both may make sense. But if the original need was for one position, doubling the headcount can unintentionally stretch budgets that could otherwise support innovation, tools, or future strategic hires. Choosing one candidate ensures resources are aligned with actual business demand rather than momentary hiring momentum.
Clear Ownership and Accountability
Clarity drives performance. When one person owns a role, expectations are straightforward. Responsibilities, KPIs, and decision authority are clearly defined. This clarity makes it easier to measure performance and provide targeted feedback.
When two people share the same responsibilities without carefully separated scopes, certain challenges can arise:
- Uncertainty around who owns the final decisions
- Overlapping efforts or duplicated work
- Slower execution due to coordination gaps
- Difficulty attributing outcomes during performance reviews
Selecting one candidate preserves role clarity, reduces confusion, and strengthens accountability across the team. Research in organizational psychology consistently shows that role clarity can increase overall productivity by 25%. Employees perform best when they understand exactly what they are accountable for and how success is measured.
Team Structure and Stability
Team performance depends heavily on structure. Even highly skilled professionals can experience friction if responsibilities are not clearly differentiated. When two individuals occupy what was designed as a single role, it may unintentionally create overlap in authority, influence, or contribution.
This can lead to unclear reporting expectations, informal competition rather than collaboration, decision delays while responsibilities are negotiated, and confusion among peers about who to approach. Strong teams benefit from complementary roles rather than duplicated ones. Hiring one candidate ensures that the existing team dynamic remains stable.
Endnotes
Choosing one candidate does not mean overlooking strong talent. It means aligning hiring decisions with structure, budget, and long-term strategy. If both finalists impressed you, maintain a relationship with the runner-up. High-quality candidates often become ideal fits for future openings as the organization grows.
In most cases, thoughtful selection – supported by structured interviews, consistent evaluation criteria, and data-backed insights – leads to better clarity, stronger accountability, and healthier team performance over time.
