Traditional Interviews

1
Traditional Interviews

• First impressions more important than factual
  information.
• Evaluations of a candidate are influenced by the
  quality of previous candidates.
• Applicants who demonstrate greater eye contact
  more likely to be hired.
• Unattractive candidates less likely to be hired.
• Overweight candidates less likely to be hired.
• Interviewers give more positive evaluations to
  people they perceive to be similar to themselves.
• Interpersonal attraction between candidate and
  interviewer influences evaluations.

2
Traditional Interviews

• Interviewers judge candidates against their own
  stereotype of an ideal candidate.
• Interviewers weigh negative information more
  heavily than positive information.
• Interviewers weight information differently than
  other interviewers.
• Interviewers reach a decision about a candidate
  within approximately 4 minutes.
• Experienced interviewers are no more reliable or
  valid than inexperienced interviewers.
• Without taking notes, interviewers remember about
  half of the information they receive in a
  20-minute interview.

3
Traditional Interviews

• Why are traditional interviews so bad?
• Low Reliability
• Different interviewers ask different questions
  and get different answers from applicants
• The same interviewers may ask different
  applicants different questions
• If interviews are not reliable, they cant be
  valid.
• Only way to increase validity is to begin with
  reliability.
• Standardize questions
• Standardize scoring procedure

4
Structured Interviews

• Situational Interviews
• Suppose one of your coworkers has been slacking
  off. You and the other three tellers have
  assisted twice as many customers and have
  completed all of the housekeeping duties. What
  would you do in this situation?
• I would ask her how she is doing in case she has
  some medical or personal problem. 3 points.
• The four of us would talk to our supervisor. 2
  points
• I would ignore the situation. 1 point
• I would tell her off and threaten to give her the
  lowest possible peer evaluations. 0 points

5
Structured Interviews

• Behavioral Description Interview
• What is the biggest difference of opinion you
  ever had with a coworker? How did it get
  resolved?
• We looked into the situation, found the problem,
  and resolved the difference. Had an honest
  conversation with the person. 3 points
• Compromised. Resolved the problem by taking
  turns, or I explained my side of the problem
  carefully. 2 points
• We asked the supervisor to resolve it for us. 1
  point
• I got mad and told the coworker off. 0 points.

6
Structured Interviews

• Structured interviews have much higher validity
  than traditional interviews. Because they are
• Reliable (consistent questions/scoring)
• Job-related
• Behavioral Description Interviews have slightly
  higher validity than Situational Interviews.