Have you been interviewing the right way?

26 Jul

Research seems to suggest the interview is a poor way to select a candidate. There seems to be little correlation between how well someone interviews, how they are evaluated in the pre-selection process and the way they actually end up performing on the job.

Interviews aren’t working, but they can. I think it’s not that the concept of the interview is flawed, but the issue is with how interviews are conducted. There are common errors interviewers make and ways to do it better.

Not recognizing bias

Most of us hold certain preferences and predispositions, and we are well aware of many of these. Many human resources professionals are partial to candidates who ask questions during the hiring process and won’t hire anyone who has no queries during the interview. Others tend to think more highly of candidates who arrive on time.

The examples I just provided would make sense, as being curious, eager, and punctual seem to indicate that one may be a good employee. But there are others that can be very egregious if brought into the hiring process—think of biases against people of a certain gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. On the far other side of the spectrum, some biases are a bit sillier, but we still often hire by picking “people who are good looking, who look or think like us, or that we kind of like,” as was pointed out in a piece for Business Insider Australia.

Regardless of how ridiculous or illegally prejudicial these biases are, once you are made aware of them, you can start to take steps to remedy these when evaluating candidates. But how do you go about uncovering an unconscious bias you’re unaware of?

Take a test. You may want to try Harvard’s Project Implicit evaluation here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/. While I can’t guarantee it, I’m fairly certain you will be surprised with the results and you may want to consider diversity training for you and the rest of your HR team.

Conducting “random” interviews

As pointed out on the Recruit Loop blog by Google’s Lazlo Bock: interviews are a mess!

We ask different questions to different candidates, ask candidates to walk us through hypothetical scenarios, and fire of brain teasers that don’t actually have any relation to the work the candidate will really do. After this, we evaluate him or her on our gut feelings as much as their answers—if not more so. Despite all of this (which seems to be our best efforts), how someone interviews sometimes doesn’t seem to correlate to how they will perform in the job!

Instead, Lazlo suggests doing interviews in a consistent, concrete, relevant way. All candidates should get the same questions, be asked about real situations they’ve experienced previously, and their questions should all be work related.

While you’re at it, don’t pay so much attention to your gut feeling. Don’t ignore those feelings, but Bock suggests basing them on data that is consistent and comparable across candidates to give those feelings a chance at being accurate.

Accepting lies

The Business Insider piece previously referenced says it best: people fake it.

Any candidate with half a brain will show up to interviews and put their best foot forward. This usually includes glossing over some short comings, previous missteps, and displaying behaviors—from impeccable grooming to punctuality—that may not be their status quo. The goal is to make the interviewer like them, and if they’re liked, they stand a great chance of getting hired over a more qualified, but less likeable, candidate.

ERE Media’s Recruiting intelligence blog paints a starker image: 65% of all candidates lie to some degree on their resume.

To get beyond this, it would seem that Bock’s interviewing tips could combat some of the mistruths. Asking for real life experience stories from previous roles could filter out some of the fibbed facts.

ERE also recommends not relying so heavily on the interview you are conducting and other subjective tools. Focus instead on assessment tools that are proven to have a degree of validity. Better yet, have your candidates possibly work on some tasks and problem solving in the real world. Remember: no hypothetical scenarios. If a prospective hire can prove their skills and ability, it would be an excellent indicator of whether or not he or she will be a success.

Final thoughts

As it stands, unless we can shake off all biases, keep our interviews on point, and see through any deception, interviews don’t work. If we can make them more objective, they may provide us with better value when evaluating a candidate, and I believe we can get there. But just to play it safe, keep assessment tools at the ready to be sure your gut feeling isn’t just indigestion.

In our organization interviews are part of our process.  They are structured, objective and include a behavioral approach.  Our research shows that 60% of a person's success can be attributed to two factors: intelligence (IQ) and conscientiousness.  Get these right first and you will be far ahead of the crowd.