MGTO 324 Recruitment and Selections

1. MGTO 324 Recruitment and Selections External Selection I: Interviews Kin Fai Ellick Wong Ph.D. Department of Management of Organizations Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

2. Prologue • Interview is the most frequently used technique for selecting employees • Arvey & Campion, 1982, Personnel Psychology • Interview evaluation, perhaps is the most significant predictor of job offering • Research showed that • Interview impression accounted for a large portion of the variance in hiring recommendations (Kinicki et al., 1990, Journal of Applied Psychology) • You may also expect to gain some “tips” for performing a good interview • I am going to summarize the factors that influence interviewers’ ratings

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5. Part 1: Unstructured- vs. structured interview • Unstructured interview • The most commonly used method • Interview questions are unplanned • Psychologically diagnose applicant suitability • Consisting of casual, open-ended, or subjective questioning • Tell me a little bit about yourself • Involving highly speculative questions • Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? • Different questions for different interviewees • No standardized scale

6. Part 1: Unstructured- vs. structured interview • Problems of using Unstructured interview • Low reliability; different interviewers may have different scales and standards • Primacy effects • Information obtained prior to interview or during its early stages, dominates interviewer judgments • Similarity effects • Applicants who are similar to the interviewer with respect to race, gender, or other characteristics receive higher ratings • Poor recall by interviewers • People recall structured/organized information better than unstructured/disorganized information

7. Part 1: Unstructured- vs. structured interview • Structured interview • The increasingly used method • Job-related method of assessment • questions are based on job analysis • Same questions for all interviewees • Standardized scale with detailed anchored rating scales • Situational interview • Questions are job-related, focusing on how the candidate would behave in a given situation • E.g., a dual bosses condition • Behavioral interviews • Questions are job-related, focusing on how they reacted to actual situations in the past • E.g., “Tell me about a time when you were speaking with an irate client, and how you turned the situation around”

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9. Part 2: Validity of Interview • A very controversial topic • Interview should be strong “face validity” • Most managers believe that they can collect useful information through interview that can predict employees’ performance • It is controversial in two senses • Psychological vs. Statistical

10. Part 2: Validity of Interview • Psychological perspective • Self-fulfilling prophecy (自我實現的預言) • Managers or employers may pay more attention, give more resources, offer more opportunity, and exhibit stronger tolerance to employees that they identified as “good” in the interview (or the whole selection process) • Similar to the phenomenon of escalation of commitment in selection context (I’ll discuss it next week) • Statistical perspective • Early review and meta-analysis showed that the incremental validity of interview is very limited (Hunter & Hunter, 1984, Psychological Bulletin) • More recent evidence showed that interview may predict more than what have been expected • In particular, structured interview has shown to be a useful selection tool (Cortina, et al., 2000, Personnel Psychology).

11. Part 2: Validity of Interview • A summary of the validity of interview from recent meta-analysis studies • E.g, Harris, (1989, Personnel Psychology);McDaniel et al. (1994, Journal of Applied Psychology); Posthuma et al. (2002, Personnel Psychology). • Average validity for all kinds of interview is about .26 • When the problem of range restricted is statistically corrected, r is about .37 • Unstructured interview: uncorrected r is about .22 • Structured interview: uncorrected r is about .31 • Situational interview: uncorrected r is about .35 • Some studies showed that the corrected r for structured interview could be as high as about .6 (Wiesner & Cronshaw, 1988, Journal of Occupational Psychology).

12. Part 2: Validity of Interview • So, does it mean unstructured interviews are useful? • Caution !!! • To validate unstructured interviews, each interview must be given a numerical score. • This may artificially impose some structures on the unstructured interviews • Therefore, as concluded by the textbook “the estimated validity for “unstructured” interviews included in the meta-analysis is probably higher than that of the typical unstructured interview

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14. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • There is a good article summarizing major factors that have been shown to influence interview evaluation • Posthuma et al. (2002, Personnel Psychology). • The factors are grouped into three categories • Social factors • Cognitive factors • Individual difference factors

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17. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • Social factors • Interviewer-Applicant Similarity • Racial and attitudinal similarity was related to higher ratings of applicants • The similarity effect seems to be stronger for interviewers with high cognitive complexity than for those with low cognitive complexity (Arvey & Campion, 1982, Personnel Psychology) • Tips for you: Try your best to search the profile of the potential interviewers and the organizational culture. • Non-verbal behavior • E.g., eye-contact; voice modulation • Tips for you: speaking loudly and assertively, eye-contact and smile • Impression management • Specific types of impression management behaviors, such as self-promotion, may be related to interview evaluation • The influences seems to be stronger in unstructured interviews than in structured interviews • Tips for you: Don’t be shy in articulating your strengths.

18. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • Social factors • Information exchanges • Successful applicants tend to be able to “adapt” to the interviewer’s communication style • More dominant when the interviewer was submissive • More submissive when the interviewer was more dominant • Tips for you: hmm… hmm… Do you want to be a person high in self-monitoring? • Pressure to hire • Interview evaluation is likely inflated when the hiring decision is under time pressure • Tips for you: This part cannot be controlled by you.

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20. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • Cognitive factors • Contrast effects • Interview order matters!!! • Interviewers tend to give inflated (deflated) evaluation after giving a poor (good) evaluation • The effects tended to be smaller in structured interview • Tips for you: see if you can determine your interview schedule • Pre-interview impressions • Impression from CV or resume information is positively related to interview evaluation • Confirmation bias • Interviewers tend to seek impression-congruent information during interviews • E,g., Interviewers may give more opportunity for applicants with good impressions but may ask more difficult question for applicants with poor impressions. • Tips for you: Make your CV as great as possible

21. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • Cognitive factors • Interviewers’ information processing • Negative information about the applicant tends to be weighted more heavily than positive information • Interviewers with more job-related information use it to focus on their questions • Tips for you: no tips offered.

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23. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • Individual difference factors • Appearance • Physical attractiveness, dress, & weight • In general, there is a general trend that applicant appearance is related to interview evaluation • However, it is still highly controversial; many studies with mixed results have been reported • The conclusions may not be very straightforward • individuals ascribe more favorable traits and more successful life outcomes to attractive people • Or applicant qualification or performance might influence perceptions of applicant attractiveness. • Tips: dressing appropriately, being tidy

25. Part 3: Factors influencing interview evaluation • Individual difference factors • Demographic characteristics • Research has continuously shown small and inconsistent effects for demographic characteristics such as age and gender bias in the western culture • There might be substantial culture difference in this issue • Personality • Surprisingly, there was almost no research examining effect of personality on interview evaluation until 1990s. • Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Need for Achievement are modestly related to interview evaluation • There are still many issues not being fully understood, such as effects of fake personality and/or social desirability responses on interview evaluation

26. Concluding Remarks • Is interview training effective in increase interview evaluation? • Trainees often react positively toward interview training • However, there was no evidence that training improved applicant chances of getting a job offer or increased the starting salary • Of course, more research is needed…