July 8, 2016
Ever been truly blown away by a job candidate’s interview performance? And then been even more blown away when their actual job performance failed to measure up? You shouldn’t be surprised. Many companies rely on open, conversational interviews in which potential candidates are free to present themselves in a way they feel will impress the interviewer. It is often the most impressive interviewee who gets awarded the job. However, research reports show those self-presentation behaviors have more to do with interview ratings and less to do with job performance ratings.* So how can a company sift through the bright and shiny candidates to find the one that will be the bright and shiny employee it’s looking for? First, candidates’ self-presentation tactics had more of an impact when the interview was relatively unstructured. To help counteract this, interviews should be as structured and standardized as possible in order to improve hiring decisions. The authors of the report advise that “although structured interview scores were still subject to attempts by candidates to manage their portrayal, the scores became significantly less so as structure increased.” Greater interview structure means a greater chance that impressive candidates will translate into impressive employees. Scoreable structured interviews […]