Structured Interviews - And the Managers Who Hate Them
By Andrew Garman, Psy.D
I dedicate this month's column to every recruiter who, despite their department's best efforts, ever witnessed a manager interview a job candidate as though he were selecting a spouse – or, worse, a drinking buddy.
Let me note that I think the dedication covers just about every working recruiter out there. But in case you are thinking, "That never happens in my company. We train our managers to death on how to interview," let me first applaud your well-spent efforts. But brace yourself for my follow-up questions:
- How often do you audit your managers' interview practices?
- Do you ever sit in on an interview to provide feedback, or take a look at a manager's notes post-interview?
Most organizations don't take these steps, and I am certain that if they did, they'd be in for an unpleasant surprise. They'd see some managers practicing "stream-of-consciousness" interviewing -- asking questions off the top of their heads in whatever order they occurred to them. Other managers would be asking giveaway questions – "We're looking for a hard-driving person. Are you a hard-driving person?" Still other managers would be asking no questions at all – they'd simply describe the job, sell the candidate on its merits, perhaps even end the interview with "I can't officially offer you the job yet, but if you're interested, color it yours."
How does bad interviewing happen to good managers? We'll answer that in a moment. But first, let's consider what we know about effective interviewing practices.
What the research has to say
There are three points that are very clear from the interviewing research. First, structured interviews give you much more accurate information than unstructured interviews. This is at least partly due to the so-called "first impression bias," in which interviewers make a hasty judgment as to whether a candidate is right for the job. This can happen as early as several minutes into an interview; the rest of the interview is then merely an effort to support the manager's first impression. If he liked the candidate, he will coach her in for a home run. If he didn't, he'll start throwing curveballs. A structured interview curtails this process because every candidate will at least get the same set of pitches.
A second key point: Experience alone does not make someone a better interviewer. You may have trouble convincing a manager with 20 years' experience to listen to a second-year recruiter, but in reality, technique regularly outperforms experience. This fact relates closely to the third point: trained interviewers consistently outperform untrained interviewers. This will surprise no recruiter I know, but it is worth mentioning to any manager who questions the value of a morning spent in interviewing training.
Why don't more managers use structured interviews?
To understand the appeal of conducting a lousy interview, we need to look inside the mind of the manager as she tries to fill an open position. At the same time, we'll consider how managers' experience with interviewing differs from that of recruiters, and what this can mean for the selection process itself.
The resource need. Filling a position always begins as the result of identifying a need for a new human resource. The need is created either by someone leaving an existing job, or by a workload growing beyond the current staff's capabilities. Both cases often involve a painful lag between the time the need is identified and the time it is filled. The greater the pain, the greater the immediate payoff for hiring someone – anyone – and thus the more likely that a poor candidate will land the position.
The role of recent experience. Consider a manager, Mindy, who just terminated a sales representative, Joe. Joe was fired for blowing his stack one too many times, causing valuable clients to look elsewhere for their services. Mindy didn't like Joe, didn't get along with him very well, and was delighted to see him leave. Chances are, Mindy's No. 1 criterion for her new hire can be summarized in three words: "Not like Joe." Whether employees leave unexpectedly or are terminated, replacing them is an emotionally charged process, and these emotions can interfere with rational decision-making about new hires.
The newest member of the family. I once heard a manager say, "Over the coming years, I will be spending more time with this new guy than I will with my own wife." Given the amount of time most people spend at work, they are usually highly motivated to hire people they will get along with well. If a candidate is interpersonally coarse, it can be very hard to look beyond that, regardless of the person's other talents. In any one hiring decision this effect can be quite subtle, but look at it across every hiring decision an organization makes, and the lost opportunities for productivity gain can really add up.
Teaching old dogs old tricks
An organization's best defense against poor hiring is an ongoing program of manager education. To be most effective, however, the program should go beyond skills training and engage managers in considering why effective interviewing can be so difficult.
How can this be done? In the context of a training session, a good place to start is by getting managers to talk about their mishires. When pressed, most experienced managers will admit to at least one major mishire in their careers. Usually the mishire interviewed well – perhaps incredibly well. These experiences make for entertaining stories, and can get managers thinking about the serious nature of the interviewing process. In a training context, these experiences can be inventoried and presented back to managers in future sessions.
Open positions are another time you can get managers thinking about interviewing. If a position is being refilled, have the manager fill you in on how the prior incumbent performed – and be sure he provides areas both of strength and weakness. Try to find out how the previous candidate was selected, and work with the manager to use that information in planning for the next selection process. If the position is new, get a sense of the manager's pressure to fill it. If the manager is feeling under the gun, help her to keep in mind the long-term downside to lowering the hiring standards too far.
When you consider all of the above points together, it becomes clear that structured interviewing is essentially a tool for keeping in check our pervasive and dangerous tendency to be human. If we can come clean about that, we may stand a better chance of getting this highly effective approach to selection used more regularly.
Please e-mail questions or comments to Andrew Garman at agarman@hrhub.com.