How FanDuel Built Fairer, More Consistent Interviews: A Conversation with Ally Maxwell

At Evidenced, we’re always looking to share practical, real-world examples of organisations improving interview fairness and consistency. For this conversation, I sat down with Ally Maxwell, who leads recruitment at FanDuel UK, to talk about how her team introduced structured interviewing, reduced bias, and opened new pathways into technical roles - including a standout Career Returners programme.

Introducing the speakers

Lewis Moore:
I’m excited to bring today’s topic to life in conversation with Ally from FanDuel. I’m Lewis, COO at Evidenced and a software engineer by trade. I’ve spent my career at companies like Amazon and Microsoft, doing and running a lot of interviews. That experience eventually brought me to Evidenced, where I now focus on helping customers like FanDuel run fair, consistent, high-quality interviews.

Ally Maxwell:
Hi there! I’m Ally, and I lead the recruitment team at FanDuel, hiring mostly technical roles. I have over 10 years’ experience in recruitment, so I’m delighted to join the discussion and talk in more detail about how we’ve worked to make interviews fairer.

Why FanDuel set out to make interviews fairer

Lewis:
To kick things off, if you think back, I suppose this is something you've always focused on in your career, but what prompted you and your team at FanDuel specifically to focus on fairer interviews?

Ally:
After I’d been in the role for a while, we realised we had a lack of consistency. Different parts of the organisation were using different questions, different stages, and different processes. What we really wanted was a unified FanDuel bar, not different requirements or barriers to entry depending on the team.

That inconsistency made it harder to assess candidates objectively, and it increased the risk of bias. When interviewers deviate from the intended questions, it’s easy to go down rabbit holes or go completely off-piste. That was the catalyst for really looking at how we were running interviews.

Lewis:
I think that’s such an important point: once hiring managers go off-piste, they drift further away from the core topic, and it becomes easy for people to feel more comfortable asking certain questions to some candidates than others. And that’s where bias creeps in. Creating consistency is fundamental to fairness.

How FanDuel rolled out structured interviewing with Evidenced

Lewis:
So you wanted to make your interviews fairer, and you embedded Evidenced. Can you walk us through what that looked like in practice and how you introduced that change?

Ally:
We worked very closely with Evidenced in the early days to establish a more formal, structured process. A key part of this was having an internal champion. Someone from my team worked directly with you and other members of the team to utilise the template library, transfer and refine our existing documentation, and continually iterate.

Once the templates were in place, there was a huge piece of education for hiring managers and interviewers. We needed them to understand why we were doing this and to bring them on board as champions within their teams. That buy-in was crucial for us to implement structured interviewing smoothly.

Having those champions also meant we could gather feedback on the tooling, identify opportunities for improvement, and influence product enhancements through the relationship we’d established with your team.

Lewis:
It’s great hearing that we’re having the impact you were hoping for, it really has felt like a strong partnership. Having that internal champion is one of the most important things, someone who truly cares about structured interviewing, about fairness, and about helping hiring managers understand the benefits.

For many hiring managers, interviewing is something they might do once every few weeks or months. So explaining why structured interviews reduce bias, how watching themselves back helps them improve, and what’s in it for them is critical. That buy-in is really valuable and important to adoption.

Fair interviewing for career returners

Lewis:
Something that really stands out about working with FanDuel is your Career Returners programme. It’s quite unique in the industry. Can you tell us more about it, and how you made sure the interviews were fair and inclusive for people who’d taken time out of the workforce?

Ally:
Absolutely. We launched a Career Returners programme to support people with gaps in their career; for example, software engineers who’d taken time out for caring responsibilities or other reasons. The programme was designed to give them a route back into the workforce, that was the ethos behind it.

We knew we needed to adapt the interview process. We still had to assess motivation, engagement, and core skills, but we also wanted to tease out informal experience or personal projects people might have pursued during their time away.

We extended our technical interviews from 60 to 90 minutes and adjusted the tasks for broader accessibility. For example, we shared the problem statement with candidates in advance and provided introductions to the interviewers. Everything was documented in Evidenced, including prompts and guidance.

Being able to make reasonable adjustments like this using Evidenced was key. The programme was incredibly successful - we gained access to amazing talent we might otherwise have missed.

Lewis:
It’s been such a privilege to support that programme. You need structure and consistency in place first, and then you can adapt for different groups and reasonable adjustments. People often talk about reasonable adjustments, but don’t always think about Career Returners, so it’s really interesting to hear how you adjusted the interview template and thought how can we assess differently, but still in a fair and consistent way?

In markets with skills gaps and difficult roles to fill, shifting from experience-based hiring to more skills-based hiring is crucial. If you’re not already considering Career Returners as a pathway, it’s worth exploring. It opens up a whole new pool of talent.

Practical steps to make interviews fairer

Lewis:
I would love to talk to you all day about this, but to wrap up: what are some small, practical steps people watching/reading can take this week or this month to improve fairness in their interviews?

Ally:
A few things come to mind:

1. Implement interview templates
Before your job goes live, make sure you know exactly what your interview process will be. Document it, and get hiring manager and interviewer buy-in. It ensures you’re searching for, and assessing, the right talent.

2. Use video interviewing
When I worked in agency recruitment, screening candidates by phone meant you’d often miss things. Video interviews, combined with prompts from Evidenced, allow us to produce a much higher-quality shortlist.

3. Shift from “service provider” to “partner”
Talent acquisition should be a partner to the business: advising on the market, giving feedback on candidates, and helping hiring managers think strategically. At FanDuel, engineering teams now come to us proactively for guidance; how we’re finding the market, whether they should open the role now or next year; they see us as experts and we’re on an equal footing.

4. Stay open to feedback
Take feedback from interviewers seriously, and use it to refine your process continually.

5. Keep candidate experience front-of-mind
Always ask: Is this fair to every candidate? Have we approached this objectively? Are we ensuring a level playing field? That mindset is essential for implementing fair interviews, and bringing in the best, most appropriate talent, and continuing to elevate our business through diversity and fairness.

Final thoughts

Lewis:
So many great, actionable ideas there - from implementing structured interviewing to switching to video, partnering with hiring managers, and continuously gathering feedback. Shifting talent acquisition from a service to a true partnership results in fairer hiring and a better experience for everyone involved.

We’re so happy to be on this journey with you and to be supporting fair, inclusive hiring at FanDuel. Thank you so much, Ally!

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