Job interviews do not work

How to choose the right person

🏷️ Categories: Decision making and biases, Social relationships.

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You have a job interview tomorrow.

You spend the night before choosing your best outfit, making sure your hairstyle is impeccable and preparing answers to typical questions like “What's your biggest weakness?” or “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”. You arrive on time, smile just enough, look the person in the eye and cross your fingers so the nervousness doesn't show.

Now put yourself in their shoes.

You're across the table with a printed resume that you've barely glanced at. You have a list of generic questions and, after 30 minutes of superficial small talk, you make a decision based on your “gut”: “This person is a good fit”.

Big mistake.

Like playing darts with your eyes closed and pretending to hit the bullseye.

Regular job interviews are not an effective method of assessing a person's potential. They are not objective, they are full of biases and, worst of all, they do not predict actual job performance (Burbeck, 1988; Simons, 1995).

I will explain why they fail and, more importantly, how to improve them to get it right.

Image of PhotoshopZen on Pixabay

What is a job interview?

Almost everyone has been through this moment at least once in their life.

A job interview is, in theory, an opportunity for the company to evaluate whether a person is suitable for a position. In practice, it is usually a poorly structured conversation where first impressions and lip service are valued more than the skills needed for the position (Chamorro, 2017).

Interviews are myopic, they only see the obvious and most superficial.

Why interviews don't work

1. It's not a real scenario

An interview is a performance.

The interviewer tries to be impartial, but is influenced by his or her moods, prejudices and cognitive biases. On the other hand, the interviewee tries to look his or her best, but may suffer from nervousness and lose the opportunity just because of that. Someone may excel at solving complex problems, but stutter and not know what to say when answering “Why do you want to work here?”

Is she then less suited for a job in mathematical analysis or finance?

Clearly not (Schneider et al., 2019).

2. Thinking in system 1

The brain always seeks to take mental shortcuts to save effort.

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, divides human thinking into 2 systems of thought: system 1 and system 2.

• System 1: Thinking through first impressions, biases and quick rules.

• System 2: Thinking carefully and analyzing information objectively.

In a job interview we think in system 1, which produces biases such as the halo effect, which makes us judge people in seconds based on their appearance, tone of voice, clothes.

It has been proven that...

1. We tend to believe that attractive people are more capable (Poutvaara et al., 2009; Berggren et al., 2016).

2. We associate deep voices with greater leadership (Klofstad et al., 2012).

3. We prefer those who are related to us in tastes and interests (Law of Agreeableness).

These biases are almost invisible, but they decide for us without us realizing it.

3. Intuition is not a good advisor

Interviewing hundreds of people does not make someone a good interviewer with a nose for talent. Repeating the process without a reliable method only reinforces the same mistakes over and over again. What's worse, it will be difficult to spot the recruiter's mistakes because it can take a long time for the error to become apparent.

How to interview more effectively?

Traditional interviews fail, but there are alternatives.

1. Structured interviews

Unlike normal interviews, a structured interview is clearly scripted.

Kahneman designed an interview with standard questions and evaluation criteria that dramatically improved accuracy in choosing personnel. It works because it eliminates improvisation, reduces the impact of biases, and better predicts future performance.

2. Evaluate capabilities

If you want to know how capable someone is to work, put that person to work.

• If you hire a designer, ask him to create a design within a time frame.

• If it's a translator, give them some documents and ask them to do a translation.

• If it's a copywriter or journalist, have them write a press release.

Pretty words can't hide a lack of skill.

And if this can be done blindly, so much the better. For example, blind interviews were found to reduce age discrimination in hiring (Neumark, 2020). This can translate into programming tests without names, logo designs without the author's name, anonymous translations if it was a translator, or comparing press releases of different candidates.

Then, the results are compared and the author of that work is asked to reveal himself.

What matters are skills, not appearances.

✍️ Your turn: How were your job interviews? Any anecdotes? My first interview was a video call and I was in a park conducting it when suddenly the sprinklers in the garden came on and splashed my glasses. I had to stop to dry my glasses and it was a very comical moment 🤣.

💭 Quote of the day (rather, phrase of the day): “Chances are you'll lean forward a little less, turn away slightly, close your body a little, be a little less expressive, maintain a little less eye contact, stand a little farther away, smile a little less, hesitate and stumble a little more with your words, laugh a little less at jokes. Does it matter? Of course it matters. Suppose the conversation is a job interview and the applicant is a black man. He's going to sense that insecurity and that distance, and it's quite possible that they will make him a little less self-assured, a little less confident, and a little less friendly. What this unconscious first impression will do, in other words, is irretrievably derail the interview.” - Malcolm Gladwell, Blink.

See you next time, take care! 👋

References 📚

1. Berggren, N., Jordahl, H., & Poutvaara, P. (2016). The right look: Conservative politicians look better and voters reward it. Journal Of Public Economics, 146, 79-86. URL

2. Burbeck, E. (1988). Predictive Validity of the Recruit Selection Interview. The Police Journal Theory Practice And Principles, 61(4), 304-311. URL

3. Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2017). The talent delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential.

4. Kahneman, D. (2011). Think fast, think slow.

5. Klofstad, C. A., Anderson, R. C., & Peters, S. (2012). Sounds like a winner: voice pitch influences perception of leadership capacity in both men and women. Proceedings Of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences, 279(1738), 2698-2704. URL

6. Neumark, D. (2020). Age Discrimination in Hiring: Evidence from Age-Blind vs. Non-Age-Blind Hiring Procedures. URL

7. Poutvaara, P., Jordahl, H., & Berggren, N. (2009). Faces of politicians: Babyfacedness predicts inferred competence but not electoral success. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(5), 1132-1135. URL

8. Schneider, L., Powell, D. M., & Bonaccio, S. (2019). Does interview anxiety predict job performance and does it influence the predictive validity of interviews? International Journal Of Selection And Assessment, 27(4), 328-336. URL

9. Simons, T. (1995). Interviewing job applicants—. Cornell Hotel And Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 36(6), 21-27. URL