We select for interview based on application forms against the person specification and we appoint on the bases of performance in the interview. All sounds very logical, rational and impartial, almost scientific. Until you look more closely at how individual members of the panel make their decisions. Which often comes down to something as vague as, “ Likeability”. In other words whether the panel “ warmed” to the candidate. On top of which 30 to 45 minutes in front of the panel is a very short time to sell your self or a very long time if nerves get the better of you.
It’s happened again. Not to me but to some one close to me. It’s happened before to people I have mentored and I have witnessed it many times to people I have worked with. The person who has demonstrated the skill, knowledge and ability to do the job, the person who has proved their reliability, competence , integrity and work ethic, the person that the team know, trust and respect has not been appointed in favour of an external candidate who was impressive , charming, likeable, and might bring something different. It doesn’t just happen when an internal candidate is up against external candidates but the short comings of the “ interview” where style triumphs over proven ability are more obvious.
There is an unfairness at the heart of the recruitment process which rewards those who are good at interviews above those who are good at the job. The surprise is not that the traditional interview results in some bad appointments it’s that it ever results in some good ones!
HR have tried to shift the emphases away from the focus on the interview by introducing an Assessment Centre approach into the final part of the recruitment process. This is very popular with recruitment consultants in selecting for senior posts. I have participated in a number of assessment centres where candidates over a two day period have undertaken tests to determine their personality traits, IQ and rational reasoning tests, test to determine their understanding of statistics and financial reports, intray exercises and even role play. And in every single case the selection of the successful candidate was based on the interview.
If you want further evidence of the vagaries of the decision making in interviews you only have to look at the typical feedback given to candidates.
“Unfortunately you were unsuccessful, the panel though you were appiontable but the person appointed had more experience.”
This is not helpful feedback and appears simply intended to appease the unsuccessful and therefore disappointed candidate. Do they mean the successful candidate had more years in a relevant post because we all know people who have for example ten years which in fact is one years experience repeated ten times, as compared to some one with three years experience who has acquired new skills and knowledge each year. Perhaps they mean that they made better use of their experience in answering questions.
When asked to review the decision making process of interview panels I frequently found that individuals formed impressionistic views of candidates despite claims to operate a robust scoring system. In fact whilst there was often evidence of an attempt to formulate questions that related to criteria on the person specification little thought was given to what constituted a good answer.
Often the absence of prior agreement on what constituted a good answer was exposed when the scoring of individual panelist’s was examined only to find a wide variation with the answer of a candidate being given a low score by one panelist and a high score by another. In fact there was often a suspicion that individual interviews formed an opinion about a candidate very early in the interview and then bent their scoring to fit this view.
The traditional interview is unscientific and subjective, but despite this fact being generally recognised, it persists because those who undertake interviews think they are good at it. Which means organisation’s will continue to appoint people who are good at interviews rather that good at the job.
