Over the last 12 years of my career, I have been responsible for interviewing and hiring for some level. Initially I was responsible for hiring entry level team members. Today I conduct hiring for leadership positions, such as the position of General Manager. The hiring process and interview questions used by the hiring managers in the company today were developed by me, with insights from my colleagues and subordinates. As I went through this week’s learning material, I kept relating it back to my experiences conducting interviews and the hiring program throughout my company. The material made me question whether or not the “selection methods” being used by my company are effective.

The questions being asked in the interviews are valid, relevant, and useful and each interviewer is using the same questions in the same order for every interview. This practice encourages consistency, contributing positively to that selection method’s reliability. The questions are consistent but, depending on who is conducting the interview, the answers to the questions may be interpreted differently, lending to a negative reliability. “How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews” said it well: “If you’re a hiring manager, you’re probably happiest getting a sense of a candidate through an unstructured interview.” The article goes on to explain that we are more inclined to “connect” with candidates who are like us. Even with structured candidate interviews, I have had candidates that I felt had a “great interview” when really I just had an easy connection with them (I liked them personally) or I felt like I saw something of myself in them (ie: rough childhood, little support). Like me, the other hiring managers may find themselves drawn to a particular candidate because of “a feeling” rather then data from the interview. This means that the result of any one interview may be different depending on who conducted, resulting in a high level of unreliability. 

While I can’t go back in time and change the way I did interviews in the past, I can make changes to improve our interview practices now and better coach my hiring teams to deliver productive, objective interviews. In “How to Get a Job at Google” we see that Google and other companies have changed their interview process to look for specific attributes and, like it said in Lecture 2, changed their selection process to “reflect those requirements”. One thing I will recommend we review as a company is our priorities. What attributes specifically are we looking for in candidates and how do we evaluate those categories in a non-biased way? I may not have a solution now, but I look forward to the next evolution of our hiring process as we continually seek to improve.

Bohnet, Iris. How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews. Harvard Business Review, 18 Apr. 2016. Inclusion Plus Institute, https://inclusionplusinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/How-to-Take-the-Bias-Out-of-Interviews.pdf.

Friedman, Thomas L. “How to Get a Job at Google.” The New York Times, 23 Feb. 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html.

Lectures 2-3. Oregon State University. Week 5 Learning Materials. Canvas, https://canvas.oregonstate.edu/courses/2055828/pages/week-5-learning-materials?module_item_id=26642155.