Job interviews are broken- How structured interviews can fix them?

Around 47.8 million Americans left their jobs in 2021 during the Great resignation. We are now in a time where companies are trying to hire by paying salaries higher than ever, with a very tight job market. Recruiters spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks vetting candidates and Job seekers around 11 hours a week on their search, applying to and interviewing for jobs.

Job interviews nowadays have become broken and outdated. It is time to shift to a model that works for both the employer and the employee.?

For decades, managers have been known for making bad hiring decisions, hiring the wrong candidates and letting go of the right ones. Some historical examples are - The Kansas City Star once rejected an application from a cartoonist named Walt Disney. Record labels said no thanks to the Beatles, Madonna, U2, Kanye and Ed Sheeran. A hotel, a police department and a Kentucky Fried Chicken denied Jack Ma a job. And 30 N.F.L. teams decided not to draft Tom Brady.

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What you see as being thoughtful and structured might be prompting a negative candidate experience as you might be hiring candidates only for the sake of rather than finding the right person for the role.?

Three major red flags signal a broken job interview-

1. Asking the wrong questions

Asking the wrong kind of questions is one of the biggest mistakes. Are you asking questions to assess their?capabilities,?or are you seeking confirming data that someone has done what you have already scoped? Stop using useless metrics to scope a job that has already been done.

Instead, ask what this person authentically brings to work. What did you find meaningful about that project? What does that particular success say about what matters to you?” The right people want to match their purpose to the organizations they work for.

2. Focusing on the wrong criteria

Interviewers tend to lean on their comfort zone and favour candidates whose history aligns with theirs. For example, they prefer people who attended the same school or have a similar sports interest.

Research showed that physical attributes also contribute to the success or failure of a job interview. Attractive people seemed to score better in interviews than those who were not.?

To reduce unconscious bias, determine which skills are essential, and look at those skills individually. It will help avoid stereotyping, first-impression bias, and contrast effects.??????????????????????????????????????????????

3. Favouring the best talkers

Chris Rock?put it best: “When you meet somebody for the first time, you are not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative". Research says 90% of college seniors who show up for interviews stretch the truth to give the interviewer a better impression.

To make a fair decision, focus less on what candidates say and more on what they do. Invite them to showcase their skills by collecting a?work sample?or a project they have worked on. A classic example supporting this theory is -At General Electric, to identify aircraft engine mechanics who work well with others, managers dump a pile of LEGOs on the table and ask a half dozen candidates to work together to build a helicopter and score their teamworking skills.

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Why are traditional interviewing techniques failing??

Employers are still using traditional techniques of interviewing based on an unstructured format, having no specific pattern. With the increasing competitiveness in the job market, these traditional ways just won't cut it anymore. Research has shown that an unstructured interview is ineffective in determining a candidate's potential.

Psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Oliver Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein talk about the impact of noise -the inconsistency in judgments that can impact business decisions in hiring decisions. According to a?Harvard Business Review?article featuring Kahneman, human judgment is affected by many factors, including current mood and the weather.

Cognitive biases in recruitment

Cognitive bias is a systemic inaccuracy in perception occurring when people absorb and evaluate data from their environment. These deceptive thought processes most frequently surface when there is a wealth of data, like during hiring. Identifying them is the key to avoiding them.

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Some of the main biases in the recruitment process are-?

- The halo effect?

- The horn effect?

- Confirmation Bias?

1. The Halo effect

The most common cognitive bias that arises during a recruitment process is known as the halo effect. It is a term that describes how people unconsciously bias themselves to like others. It happens when the hiring manager favours a single favourable attribute or characteristic of the interviewee and affects the evaluation of other unrelated and undesirable ones.?

Some of the ways to avoid the halo effect-?

• Inclusion of different people to handle different levels of the selection process
• Have more than one person on the hiring panel?
• Conduct several interviews
• Bring in a third party who has no reason to halo the candidate?
• Follow a hiring checklist

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2.?The horn effect?

The horn effect is the opposite of the halo effect. It is a type of cognitive bias that surfaces when you make a snap judgment about someone based on one negative trait. Say you meet your new supervisor who is bald, and you immediately remember a bald middle school teacher who bullied and mocked you.

Since the recruiter places a great deal of focus on just one adversely evaluated quality, there lies a risk of candidates not being considered for portraying whatever the recruiter believes is a poor feature.

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3. Confirmation bias

The?American Psychological Association?defines it as:?“The tendency to gather evidence that confirms preexisting expectations, typically by emphasizing or pursuing supporting evidence while dismissing or failing to seek contradictory evidence.”?

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How to avoid confirmation bias?

Confirmation bias is hard to overcome. However, with awareness and the right resources, it can be avoidable.

Some ways you can avoid confirmation bias is-

1. Machine-learning AI helps reduce bias. It takes candidate backgrounds out of the mix and makes hiring more about merit. When used well, it removes the need to judge candidates based on where they worked or how they performed in interviews.?
2. Creating a conscious interview process removes room for irrelevant details and levels the playing field. That way, only the best candidates can advance.
3. Keep the "reviewing of the resume" as the last priority because they can be misleading. Instead, have candidates take up a skills assessment early in the recruitment process and then progress to an interview.

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The solution?

Ensuring everyone involved in the hiring process is aligned is critical to?running successful interview processes?while employing the right individuals and providing a stellar experience to each candidate engaged.

A structured interview is effective as it has a clearly defined role and core objectives: a hiring team uses a rubric and a deliberate set of questions that foster data-driven hiring decisions.

A structured interview is advantageous for both the candidate and the employer as it ensures non-semi-structured interview processes, or worse, unstructured interview processes, that prevent panellists from comparing candidates and discerning the strongest-fit individuals.

We are still at the beginning of this hiring paradigm shift, but we believe that with ambition and a willingness to embrace the future, we can create a system that works for candidates and employers alike.