Selection Interview as an Effective Employee Selection Practice - Essay Example

?Selection Interview as an Effective Employee Selection Practice I. Introduction The need to detect deception is hardly a twentieth-century phenomenon; humans have always needed to distinguish between the trustworthy and the untrustworthy (Gordon & Fleisher, 2011). Short listing candidates and interviewing only the last two or three candidates to feel the guy is the best way to get the right guy (Beatty, 1994). Initial interviews are often conducted to ensure that the candidate understand the job functions. But the final interview should be conducted when the references have been verified, the educational back-ground have been checked and the actual competency claimed tested. In Hiring the Best the following were cautioned to be the normal problems when a the wrong person is hired for the job. “Poor analysis of job functions, leading to the recruitment of the wrong people. Misguided recruitment strategies, leading to an inadequte pool of talent. Poor analysis of the necessary skill sets and behaviors, leading to inappropriate selection criteria.Inadequate initial screening, leading to wasted time and the wrong candidate on the short list. Inadequate interviewing techniques, resulting in less access to the facts. Inaedquate questioning techniques, allowing candidates to commit “snow jobs”. Poor utilization of “second opinions,” compounding all of the above errors. Overselling the company and career/money expectations, leading to frustrated unmotivated staff. Not checking references, leading to troublemakers (and worse) sneaking onto your payroll and damaging professional reputations.” (Yate, 2006) To prevent the above this paper shall explore the various solutions being offered by other authors. The first to be considered is the value of any job that can be traced back to the job description (Klinvex & O'Connell, 1999). It is better to know what you want than being told what you need. Therefore the job description should always be on hand. Another solution to consider it to prepare the interviewer through additional trainings and knowledge building exercises. It would also be prudent to video record the interview for reference purposes. II. Review of Related Materials Companies in any industry use the selection interview as the final step in any hiring process. The rationale for the selection interview as the final determination of a candidate’s fate is that it will predict the performance of the potential candidate. However, this is a misplaced concept. Even lie detector test need a baseline to determine which statement are lies and which are not. Without a baseline for the candidate’s demeanor, inflections and overall behaviour it is very hard to accurately determine his intention and motivations or predict his future performance. Just the same, given that selection interviews are still preffered by many managers to “feel” their candidates, the Human Resoruce Management Department should equip these managers the skills and knowledge they need to have. “A competency-based framework is advocated as the best way to creating a level playing field for evaluating candidates and for improving the validity of the selection interview. Competencies should be developed as part of a job analysis in which job description defines the duties or tasks invovled and a person specification details the characteristics or knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform the job. Some competencies can be assessed only by experts and others may require work samples, while still others need to be monitored or assess over time in the job. Competency approaches should therefore be developed as part of the corporate resource policy.” (Swift & Robertson, 2000) According to Lou Adler (1998) in the book “Hire with Your Head” The best interviewers use two different critical thinking skills, one for the hiring decision and another for information gathering. They recognize that the hiring decision must be intuitive, since there is never enough information to match abilities, needs, and interests completely. Instead, they substitute a broader group of eight to ten generic and job specific factors to assess competency. Despite this intuitive approach, they recognize that an analytical, fact finding method is needed to collect as much as appropriate data as possible about these traits before making the hiring decision. Great interviewers also have the ability to suspend their personal reaction to the candidate long enough to make an unbiased assessment. It appears that weaker interviewers, those who make many mistakes, fall within three broad categories. A large percentage is too emotional - these people make quick simplistic judgements based largely on first impressions and personality. The overly intuitive interviewer short-circuits the process they superficially assess a narrow group of important traits. Then the technical interviewer who relies on years of experience and abundance of skills – the result is a competent employee but undedicated (Adler, 1998). III. Discussion and Analysis According to Changing minds there are four common types of selection interview. Situational interviews – that use specific situation base questions these are normally conducted by psychologists; Job-related interviews – conducted by Human Resource Manager to probe the candidate’s past job experiences; Psychological interviews – conducted by psychologists to determine behavioural markers; Competency interviews – that is aimed at determining skills, leadership, time management and project management (Changing Minds, 2011). Selection interviews are about determining future performance, which is hard to predict given that nobody can really divine the future. However, behaviours are good indicators of what a candidate would do given the same situation. Thus, Behavioural interviews wherein candidates are asked question about specific situations where their response and answers to the situation are then noted (Wilmott, 2011). Selection interviews tend to give more weight to negative information when personal biases against a candidate are given more consideration. First impression drives the conduct of the interview thus decision with regards to the future of the candidate is made within the first minutes. However, selection interviews are also useful in determining an applicant’s communication skills that may be an important requisite in the position. The interviewer can gather additional information that is not evident in the resume of the candidate. The confidence of the applicant’s knowledge of the job can better be explained in an interview (HR Guide, 2001). The purpose of selection criteria and tests is to ensure that an individual has the ability to perform or train for a particular job. The employer should avoid insisting on irrelevant qualifications. Selection criteria and tests should be reviewed regularly to ensure that they remain relevant and are not unlawfully discriminatory (Employment-Solicitors, 2011). Despites the many questions with regards to reliability majority of employers would not dream of recruiting someone without carrying out an interview. It is likely that job candidates, for their part, would also not want to miss this chance to meet their potential employer, typically face to face at what could be their future workplace. There is no other selection activity that quite replicates the interview (Suff, 2010). The challenge of today’s Human Resource Professionals is to create and nurture a pool of good employees in the organization. It starts from the selection process of the employees. The cost of rehiring and retaining solidifies the importance of hiring the right person for the right position first. It requires reliable and valid interview process (Ullah, 2010). The succeeding paragraph will describe what other companies do and what psychologist recommends. In conducting selection interviews it is best to evaluate the candidate throughout the interview. Ensure that all the information in the resume is verified that would include education, work experience and other job related skills. Scrutinise their career progression to assess if a candidate is applying for the job to further their career. If there are gaps in her employment history, the interviewer should ask why the gaps occurred including what kept the candidate busy during the gaps. Be aware of the candidate’s body language note discrepancies between what the candidate is saying and what his body is saying (Di Castri, 2011). Six of the best probing questions in selection interviews (Business Psychologist, 2011) 1. What has been your biggest failure in business to date? – A good candidate will describe a “failure” or disappountement and go on to explain the lessons learned and how he has reduced the likelihood of the same situation from reoccurring. 2. What frustrated you most in your last job? – Every job has frustrations but a candidate with initiative will follow-up by telling the interviewer what he did to overcome these frustrations. It is not good enough to imply that the frustrations were accepted and the candidates should at least be able to explain the steps take to sort things out. 3. Tell me about an achievement in the last 5 years of which you are particularly proud. – A good candidate should be able to refer to a specific achievement, back it up with numbers, statistics or behavioural evidence, and tell you how he did it. 4. Tell me about a difficult staff situation in the past 5 years that you handled particularly well. – A good candidate would diagnose the problem analyse the options and describe why a particular action plan was formulated. The interviewer are looking for someone who has good diagnostic skills and can bring out the best in people through systematic behavioural development. 5. Tell me about a difficult staff situation in the past 5 years that you handled badly and how you could have imporved your handling of it. – A good candidate should always be able to come up with an example and analyse what went wrong and then articulate the steps, in hindsight, he would take to manage the situation differently. The good candidate would impress with their ability to analyse and evaluate past performance. 6. If I called your boss what would he say about you? – A good candidate should have an informed perception of how he is rated by a previous line manager including a realistic idea of strengths and development opportunities. A good answer should display awareness of the incremental nature of performance and it should include, say 3 positive attributes with supporting evidence and say, 3 opportunities for further improvement with preferably some ideas on how this improvement will be achieved. By taking a video of the whole interview, an organization would be able to review the conduct of the interview. This is for the protection of all parties concerned and also this would enable the Human Resource Management Department to review the behaviour and demeanour of the applicant. So long as consent is taken from the applicant that the interview will be video recorded, legal impediments may be avoided. And last but not the least. Much focus has been given to; how an interviewer can prepare for the interview and what information and questions are needed to ensure a successful interview. Extra focus is not being given to the one conducting the interview. Not everybody can interview. Not all people are equipped to handle and evaluate behavioural patterns and shift the conduct of the interview accordingly. Video recording the interview may help specially if there is a short supply of employee from the Human Resource Management Department who are trained in behavioural psychology. Training interviewer is a must. Managers are most specially exposed to the hazards of hiring the wrong person. Training the managers in the details of human psychology may not be cost effective therefore the next best thing is to orient them on what to be aware of. Conducting workshops to provide them with the proficiency of conducting an effective selection interview until they get it right is probably the best course of action (Am Azure, 2008). During the training it is best to orient the interviewers of the pitfalls of a biased interview. Thus they should be trained on what not to do. The legal requirements such as showing discrimination are also a must in the training modules. Some say the complexity of interviewing makes it an art than a trade. The variations and permutation on how a candidate can react are varied that predicting the outcome or the future performance of a candidate is not as accurate as can be hoped for. But preparation is still the best way to manage something that is unpredictable. IV. Conclusion Everybody lies in more ways than one and in one way or another, the degree and gravity is dependent on the benefit that will be derived from lying. In interviews, candidates never present themselves in a bad light, almost always they will paint themselves as the saint the interviewer want them to be. However, that is when the interviewers do not ask the right questions. Thus, it is very important to be prepared before any interview. Selection interviews almost always open the organization for disappointment later on. More often than not candidates hide something that the interviewers fail to spot during the interview. And manifest itself in mediocre performance throughout the candidate’s stay within the company. Selection interviews no matter how structured will not be able to expose discrepancies during the entire interview session. That is why it is considered as one of the most unreliable way of ferreting out the truth or determining the right candidate for the job. However, it should be noted that face to face selection interviews is the best way to determine behaviour and attitudes. Their reactions to difficult and catch twenty two questions are valuable insights on how their mind process and respond to difficult situations. The way they respond to pointed question that will make them commit to a position that will later be untenable are the behaviour that will provide the kind of worker the candidate will be. It is best to take a video recording of the interview for reference purposes later on. A candidate who has nothing to hide would not mind, an employee who fails to deliver what he has been caught on tape as a candidate say he will do may be prompted to perform better later. At any rate the video recording can be a good tool to help evaluate the responses and mannerism of the candidate later. In conducting selection interviews it is best to be prepared, knowing what you want is better than the candidate telling you that you want them, a good charismatic salesman can do that. Unless the position that needs to be filled up is for a salesman that is not a good way to choose the best candidate. The job description of the position to be filled should be on hand and in the mind of the interviewer. But knowing the technical requirement of the job is not enough. The interviewer should also be familiar with the culture or operating atmosphere of the position that is going to be filled. Information such as these is useful in determining the right behaviour, temperament and attitude needed for the job that should be in the ideal candidate. For organizations, the best interviewers are those that do not harbour or display any strong biases in any form. Training the interviewers in basic psychology and conducting scientific interview is another strategy in assuring professionally conducted selection interviews. The best result however may not be within the range or near one hundred percent as far as choosing the best and ideal candidates. This is due to the fact that selection interviews are intuitive in nature. It’s just that some are better liars than most. However, at any rate better liars tend to over compensate for the lies thus they tend to perform better than the rest. Bibliography Adler, L. (1998). Hire with Your Head: Using Power Hiring to Build Greate Companies. Canada: Wiley and Sons Inc. Am Azure. (2008). The Future of Selection Interview. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from Amazureconsulting: http://www.amazureconsulting.com/files/1/96800059/TheFutureoftheSelectionInterview.pdf Beatty, R. H. (1994). Interviewing and Selecting High Performers. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons INc. Business Psychologist. (2011). Probing Selection Interview Questions: Six of the best. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from Psych-pcs.co.uk: http://www.psych-pcs.co.uk/Selection_Probing_Selection_Interview_Questions.pdf Changing Minds. (2011). Selection Interview. Retrieved February 4, 2011, from Changing Minds: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/hr/selection/interview.htm Di Castri, J. (2011). Quick Guide: Conducting a Selection Interview. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from Zee-Associates.co.uk: http://www.zee-associates.co.uk/pictures/QuickGuide/102/QG%20Conducting%20a%20selection%20interview.pdf Employment-Solicitors. (2011). Selecting and interviewing applicants. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from Employment solicitors.co.uk: http://www.employment-solicitors.co.uk/job-interviews.htm Gordon, N., & Fleisher, W. (2011). Effective Interviwing and Interrogatoin Technique. London: Elsevier. HR Guide. (2001). Personnel Selection Methods: Interview. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from Human Resource Guide: http://www.hr-guide.com/data/G311.htm Klinvex, K. C., & O'Connell, M. S. (1999). Hiring Great People. New York: McGraw Hill. Suff, R. (2010, October 6). Selection Interviews: A 90 Second hiring decision. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from Xpert HR Employment Intelligence: http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2010/10/selection-interviews-a-90-seco.html Swift, T. A., & Robertson, I. T. (2000). Effective Interviewing Skills. London: The British Psychological Society. Ullah, M. (2010). A systematic approach of conducting employee selection interview. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from International Journal of Business Management: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/article/view/5644 Wilmott, N. (2011). Interviewing Styles: Tips for interview approches. Retrieved February 5, 2011, from About.com Human Resources: http://humanresources.about.com/cs/selectionstaffing/a/interviews.htm Yate, M. (2006). Hiring the Best: A Managers Guide to Effective Interviewing and Recruiting. Avon MA: Adams Media. Read More