Posted by Josh Millet on Mon, Jul 21, 2008 @ 08:06 PM
Last week the New York Times published an interview with the
authors of Sway, a new book that documents a series of psychological forces
that lead people to disregard logic and act irrationally. One chapter in
Sway deals with the phenomenon of the job interview, and describes
the "first date" format of job interview that is so ubiquitous in America today.
Most job interviews resemble first dates because employers utilize an
unstructured "get to know the candidate" approach in which the interviewers
try to establish a rapport with the interviewee, discover common interests, and
form an impression as to whether the candidate will be a "good fit" at the
company. The problem with "first date" interviews is that asking candidates
to "describe themselves" or assess their "strengths and weaknesses" too often leads to
canned answers that don't reveal much about future performance.
The authors argue that managers consistently overestimate
their ability to form objective opinions based on interviews, and argue that
structured interviews are much better predictors of future performance because
they focus on relevant, objective data. The fact that unstructured interviews
aren't a very good way of gathering objective data on candidates isn't news to anyone
who is familiar with research in this area. What's surprising is that the
authors actually significantly understate their case when they conclude that:
"As counterintuitive as it sounds, you don't need interviews at all. Research
shows that an aptitude test predicts performance just as well as a structured
interview."
Actually, what most research shows is that employment
aptitude tests are far better predictors than are structured interviews. (The authors refer often to a meta-analysis, but don't reference which
meta-analysis they are using in the Notes. The most comprehensive meta-analysis
of employee selection techniques is the ubiquitously cited Hunter and Schmidt from the 1990s, which shows that aptitude tests are better predictors than are structured interviews.)
Employment tests predict performance more accurately than interviews do precisely because they yield objective, relevant data about a candidate's problem-solving ability, critical thinking skills, and job-relevant personality traits. In short, they provide the kind of data that is not susceptible to "Sway" -- the authors' catch-all phrase used to describe the effect of irrational impulses on human behavior. Although I think "Sway" simplifies the issues somewhat, the authors' basic point about job interviews is very sound. After all, if you wouldn't marry someone based on hitting it off on a first date, should you be hiring based on an interview?
Posted by Josh Millet on Tue, Apr 22, 2008 @ 01:07 PM
Hello all. Well, we're taking the plunge into the blogosphere. We're launching our blog in order to be able to discuss trends in employee testing and Human Resources in general, provide updates about new features in HireSelect, Criteria's web-based pre-employment testing system, and to provide news about our company that may be of interest to our customers.
First, if you're new to the subject of pre-employment testing you may want to check out our white paper. There are also a couple of blogs that I read regularly that I would recommend to HR people who are interested in following trends in HR testing. The one I want to mention today is this HR Testing blog that may be of interest to those of you who are already familiar with the basic issues surrounding employee testing. One of the recent posts gives a good summary of a recent survey of trends in employment testing.
Well, that's all for now, I'll keep the first one short and sweet. But check back later this week when I'll post a summary of a recent study we did examining the use of the Wonderlic Personnel Test by teams in the National Football League. We came up with some findings that I think may surprise you.