Candidate interview assessment is primarily reliant on subjective human judgment, while existing AI-based methods rely on end-to-end predictions with no psychometric basis. In this paper, we propose an interpretable multi-modal framework that combines nonverbal behavior, LLM-based verbal analysis, and Big Five personality traits into three theory-based constructs: professional-cognitive competence, observed leadership behavior, and leadership disposition. The proposed method utilizes computer vision and larger language models to extract features from video interviews. Rather than targeting predictive accuracy, the proposed method prioritizes construct validity and transparent aggregation under severe label scarcity. The proposed method aggregates the constructs into a Top Potential Score that reflects the executive abilities of the candidate. Experiments on the method show its ability to significantly differentiate top candidates from others (Cliff’s delta = 0.91 for the composite Top Potential Score, permutation p = 0.0002). Leave-one-out analysis verifies robustness, while rank-based evaluation yields 100% recall of executive candidates in the top 20% of rated applications. The findings justify the use of the proposed multi-modal method as an interpretable decision-support tool for candidate interview assessment.
Kassab et al. (2026) studied this question.