Effectiveness in Recruitment and Selection

Interviews suffer a number of disadvantages ..... what are they?

1. The Managing Director of a Multinational in India recently remarked "The

engineer we recruited recently looked better during the interview than 15
days after him joining the company."

2. The Product Manager of a large manufacturing organisation remarked to his

friend "I am glad you recommended Mr. X for the job, he is doing extremely
well. But for your recommendation, I would never have recruited him based on
his performance in the interview."

These are typical reactions from Managers, highlighting two types of errors that
occur in recruitment and selection. The first is the case of a Type I error, where we
select the wrong person. The second is a case where a Type II error was avoided,
where we reject the right person.

One of the reasons for such reactions is that most selection decisions are made on
the basis of the interview alone. Interview is the most widely used selection tool and
in some cases the only one. Some of the reasons for its popularity are, It is
convenient and it gives us a feel of the person. It provides the interviewer with a
sense of control (which can be very seductive). An interview provides flexibility to
probe and take leads from the candidate's answers. It allows for clarification both by
the interviewer and the interviewee.

While the Interview is an important selection tool and can be considered invaluable in
getting to understand the candidate, using interviews as a stand alone tool for
recruitment leaves a lot to be desired. Interviews suffer from a number of
disadvantages like:

1. The exaggerated belief by many of us that we have a natural and innate

talent for interviewing.

2. Poor or no preparation by the interviewers. This was highlighted in a recent

workshop on Selection Skills. Participants found that, on a number of
occasions they started interviewing without even spending 10 to 15 minutes
preparing for it. This initiated thought amongst Human Resource and online
Managers who attended the workshop.

3. Poor Inter-Rater agreement. Many interviews involve more than one person.
Rarely is there a consensus on whom to select or reject. This is because
interviewers are likely to weigh the same information differently. This
difference of opinion and conflict is common when executives from different
areas like Human Resources and Technical are involved in the interviews.

4. It is not feasible to ask identical questions of each candidate in the same

order. The basis to compare candidates becomes unequal.

5. Interviewers attitudes affect the interpretation of candidates' answers.

6. Most interviewers use unstructured formats, whereby the areas probed are
not consistent and decisions are made quite early in the proceedings based
on initial/first impressions.
 7. The co-relation between performance in the interview and on the job
performance is low.

8. Candidate's behaviour can be affected by the way the interview is conducted.

The candidate's performance is also dependent on the environment and the
place where the interview is being conducted.

9. The interest, involvement and attitude of the interviewers depend on a

number of factors like the time of the interview (whether before lunch or
after), how many candidates have been interviewed so far, how the previous
candidate had performed and so on.

10. Some of the well-known phenomenons like the Halo effect; stereotyping and
projection, can have a bearing on the interview and undermine the selection
process.

In view of the above it is clear that the interview as a stand-alone selection tool will
not lead to an effective selection. Therefore, if we desire our selection process to be
more robust we need to look at other methods /tools available.

A number of other methods ranging from Astrology to Assessment centers can be

used for selection, with varying levels of predictive effectiveness (see fig. 1).

Predictive Effectiveness

1. HIGH
-Assessment Centers (promotion)
-Work Sample tests
-Ability tests
-Assessment Centers (Performance)
-Personality tests (combination)
- Bio-data
-Structured Interviews
- Typical Interviews
- References
- Astrology
2. LOW

Fig. 1

It is seen from fig. 1, that interviews are fairly low in the order of effectiveness.
Structured interviews and tests fare better.

To improve the selection process, the following steps can be adopted:

1. Identify the critical attributes before beginning the recruitment process.

2. Use a combination of assessment tools like tests, interviews and references.

3. Identify and use the appropriate tests.

4. Identify the persons who will be conducting the interview, well in advance.
 5. Provide the interviewers with all relevant materials regarding the candidates.

6. Wherever possible, split the interview into technical and non-technical.

7. Build some structure into the interview.

8. Provide sufficient time for each candidate and avoid rushing through.

9. Have each interviewer document the reasons why he thinks a candidate is

acceptable/not acceptable.

10. If the selection is for a senior position, have more than one interview, some of
them in informal settings.

Following the above steps do not guarantee zero errors, but it will bring down the
errors and improve the effectiveness of the selection process.