The purpose of interviewing is predicting future job performance. Applying that well means focusing as much as possible on gathering information. You want to discover everything you can about the candidate that is relevant to the job.

Only when you’ve gathered as much information as possible do you shift into evaluation mode. If you evaluate too early, you’ll get less curious. You’ll be likely to confirm your biases. You may be too narrow in considering the role for the candidate.

What you’re doing is mapping the shape of a key. You identify the points and the grooves. Then you try to see if it fits the lock. If you map the key well, you can test it on multiple locks. It may fit several, one, or none. But if you only map the key by testing it against the one lock, you won’t fully profile it, and you won’t be able to test it against other locks.