Have you ever hired the wrong person? If so, perhaps you are an emotional interviewer?

An emotional interviewer tends to make judgments on first impressions. In a matter of minutes, an emotional interviewer may decide if someone is competent or not. Not surprisingly, they often make poor hiring decisions.

All hiring managers are susceptible to "emotional" hiring mistakes. Why? Because we are human and we like to hire people that we like or that may mirror ourselves.

First impressions, good or bad, tend to skew the interviewer's evaluation of a candidate. Given the difficulty of overcoming first impressions, what can you do as a hiring manager to avoid making hiring decisions based on emotion?