Reflecting on my prior interview experiences, I acknowledge that many were deficient in reliability, validity, and utility, the three essential qualities emphasized in this week’s readings and lectures. Some interviews focused more on intuition than on formal questions, leading to erratic results, reduced reliability, poor links to job performance, and low validity.
For instance, the latest job interview I had was a very conversational type with no clear connection to the skills required for the position. Although this method was friendly, it did not have consistent and job-relevant insights for me, which Bohnet (2018) points out as a major flaw that can lead to bias. In contrast, one of my most successful past group interviews used a more structured format where every candidate was asked identical situational and behavioral questions. This created a fairer process and made it easier to compare candidates accurately, boosting both reliability and validity.
According to insights from First, Break All the Rules by Buckingham and Coffman (2016), focusing on people’s natural talents and skills instead of just their experience could have made the selection process even better. Plus, Laszlo Bock’s approach at Google shows how important it is to use structured interviews that assess cognitive skills, leadership qualities, and what he calls “Googleyness.” This gives a solid way to predict who will succeed in the future (Bock, 2014). If I could go back and advise those employers, I would recommend that they use structured interviews with predetermined, job-related questions and use consistent evaluation criteria and involve multiple interviewers to reduce bias. I would also suggest that they incorporate situational judgement scenarios to better predict on-the-job performance as Chamorro-Premuzic and Steinmetz (2013) suggested.
By basing interviews on research-supported techniques like the ones above, I believe that employers can make sure they are selecting not just the most charming candidate, but the most suitable one for the position.
Sources:
Buckingham, M. & Coffman, C. 2016. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.
Bock, L. (2014). Get a Job at Google. The New York Times.
Bohnet , I. (2018) How to Take the Bias out of Interviews, Harvard Business Review
Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Steinmetz, C. (2013). The Perfect Hire. Scientific American Mind, 24 (3), 42-47.