Types of Selection Interviews - Research Paper Example

Abstract This paper reviews a range of research literature about structured selection interviews. Structured selection interviews are first defined in terms of type and format, and the differences between structured and unstructured interviews are explained. The issues in employee selection that are raised or resolved by research on various aspects of structured interviews are discussed in detail. Through this examination, it is found that while there has been a large amount of study and commentary devoted to the subject, there is little agreement as to what constitutes best practice in selection interviews. Much of the research is contradictory, a problem which is aggravated by the lack of studies which test the conclusions of other researchers. In addition, there are significant gaps in the research due to a focus on specific issues rather than overall theories. The confusing and contradictory nature of the research is responsible at least in part for a lack of application in real-world situations of the concepts revealed by the research. In spite of this, a combination of best practices gleaned from the body of research is recommended as a potentially effective solution, although with the caveat that more relevant research into the subject is needed. 1. Introduction The topic of employee selection interviews is generally divided into three areas: interviews from the job-seeker’s perspective, interviews from the employer’s perspective, and interviews from a social science perspective. Much of the research that has been done on employee selection interviews combines these latter two areas of inquiry, while other research focuses on one or the other. The importance of the selection interview is manifest. Choosing the “right” employee – one who has proper training, skills, experience, and personal attributes – for a position is a critical objective of human resource management, likely even more important than managing on-the-job performance. If an unsuitable employee is chosen to fill a job, with few exceptions no amount of remedial training or supervision will turn that employee into a success. The costs in time, effort, and resources to find and hire people are enormous, and no business can afford to regard the issue casually. Thus, using an effective employee selection process is not simply a benefit to employers but is in fact a critical necessity. This paper reviews the research literature and commentary on one kind of selection interview, the structured selection interview. Structured selection interviews can be differentiated by type and format. The two types of selection interviews that are discussed in the most detail by various authors are the situational and behavioral interviews. A third type, the performance-based interview, is defined by Stephen Jackson (2001), who makes a strong argument for its being the most effective method. These interviews can be conducted in a variety of formats, of which common examples are an interview with an individual interviewer, a work sample interview, a peer group interview, panel interview, luncheon or social interview, a stress interview, or video conference. (ISEEK, 2008) Each of these has particular advantages and applications. Peer group and social interviews, for example, are useful in assessing a candidate’s interaction with other people, while a stress interview in which a candidate is purposely given hostile or offensive questions can measure how he or she responds to high-pressure or crisis situations. (ISEEK, 2008) Most of the literature addresses the content or type of interview rather than the format, but there are significant exceptions. McCulloch and Oborne (n.d.) examine possible obstacles to communication in the video conference format, while Campion and Palmer (1995) consider many different formats and their alternatives. After developing a reasonable definition of a structured selection interview – a task that the often contradictory research makes difficult – the various studies on “conventional wisdom” aspects of structured selection interviews, such as standardized questions and multiple interviewers are examined. The objective is to discover which best practices in structured selection interviews are backed by research and to offer a recommendation on that basis. While it is found to be possible to do that based on the existing research, the one definite conclusion that is drawn is that the research, while extensive, is nonetheless incomplete and confusing, and that this subject should be studied more intensively. 2. The Structured Selection Interview The Public Service Commission of Canada (2007) lists three characteristics that define a structured interview: Questions are relevant to the responsibilities and duties of the position; they are systematically designed to gain information about specific qualifications of candidates; and the answers to the questions are evaluated based on a set of established standards or criteria. The Research Observatory of the University of the West of England (2007) gives even narrower definitions of what a structured interview must include. Questions must be predetermined and closed, or in other words require a definite – and by implication, quantifiable – answer. Expected or desirable answers can be “pre-coded” and assigned some kind of score or rating factor to help in assessing and comparing candidates. (UWE, 2007) The questions should be the same regardless of the interviewer or the interviewee, and they should be asked in a fixed sequence. Based on these ideas, a structured selection interview can be defined as one in which: The questions and the format are predetermined, they are applied uniformly to all candidates and by all interviewers, and the content of the interview, i.e. the questions and the format in which they are presented, is designed to obtain information which will permit an objective or quantifiable assessment of candidates. In simplest terms, a structured interview is different from an unstructured interview by being its opposite: a structured interview is pre-planned, conducted in the same manner for every candidate, and intended to elicit a particular, predetermined kind of information, whereas an unstructured interview has none of those characteristics. Unstructured interviews are more often discussed in the literature in terms of their application to the social sciences and other non-business settings (Craig, 2004, and Yan, 2006), but clearly they are also used and have been studied in their application as an employee selection interview technique. (Keenan, 1982, Dipboye, 1994, Ramsay, Gallois, and Callan, 1997, Hodson, 2001, and Blackman, 2002) In a selection interview setting, an unstructured interview would feature open-ended questions such as “Tell us about yourself,” or “What do you feel are your strengths and weaknesses?” questions that are more conversational in nature and invite further questions based on their responses. (Nevo and Berman, 1994:90) 2.1 Issues Raised by the Research Literature: Assessing the Effectiveness and Use of Structured Interviews The research literature raises several interesting issues involving structured selection interviews. First, there are the advantages and disadvantages of different types and formats of structured interviews. Second, there is the matter of how structured interviews are actually practiced by employers and interviewers. And finally, there is even some debate as to whether structured interviews are in fact the best practice, although the overwhelming majority of the literature supports this idea. Different methods used in structured selection interviews are judged against the standards of reliability and validity. (Campion and Palmer, 1995, Turner, 2004: 18, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 2008:3) Campion and Palmer (1995) also consider a third factor, user reactions. Most of the literature, however, treats the concepts of reliability and validity as intuitive, and does not clearly define them. Inferring from the usage of the terms in the research, the best definition of reliability seems to be the effectiveness of an interview technique in eliciting accurate and honest responses and actually selecting a suitable candidate. (Campion and Palmer, 1995) “Validity” seems to be analogous to “relevance”: whether or not the interview technique or questions gathers information pertaining to the particular job requirements and candidate qualifications that are being sought. Selection interviews that have both the qualities of reliability and validity are, of course, considered effective. 3. The Situational Interview A situational interview involves questions like, “What would you do if…?” The interviewer poses hypothetical questions or scenarios to the candidate, who must describe what his response or actions would be in that situation. The rationale behind the situational interview is that candidates will most likely act in a real situation as they say they would. (PSC Canada, 2007) The implication is that an interviewer, under the ideal conditions of good, relevant questions that elicit completely honest and accurate answers, can assess a candidate’s temperament and skills from their responses. The process by which a situational interview is conducted depends on the format of the interview, but can be generalized to a certain extent. The candidate is presented with a series of hypothetical questions that address either job function or procedure issues or matters of judgment. These questions should have a clear right answer, which is usually determined by the specific circumstances of the position or the company. To illustrate, here is a hypothetical situational question that might be asked of a candidate for a retail sales position: “A familiar customer wishes to return a recently-purchased item for a refund and has the required sales receipt and package, but any refunds must be approved by the manager, who is presently out to lunch. Would you a) refuse the refund, and instruct the customer to return later, b) explain the policy, and offer the customer a replacement item as a substitute for a refund, or c) make the refund anyway since the customer has otherwise met the requirements, and explain it to your manager when he returns?” The correct answer, of course, depends on what the policy of the company is; choice c) might be acceptable to some companies, but not to others. Alternatively, the same question could be posed without offering specific choices of answers, so long as the interviewer already has a preferred or acceptable answer in mind. 3.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Situational Interviews Situational interviews have the advantage of being consistent, because they can be designed with questions that are pertinent to all candidates, regardless of variations in the candidates’ prior experiences or their particular qualifications. (Campion and Palmer, 1995) A carpenter and a brick mason, for example, may both potentially be qualified for a position as a construction supervisor, but they have different backgrounds in skills and work experience. A situational interview focuses on circumstances of the position in question or on more general issues, rather than dealing with specifics of past job requirements and functions. Thus, it has wide applicability, which implies validity. The reliability of situational interviews is dependent on who is writing and asking the questions, and how truthful the candidates’ responses are. (Campion and Palmer, 1995, Iddekinge, et. al., 2004) Because these ‘human factors’ can vary greatly, this is the biggest disadvantage of situational interviews. As noted above, the ideal is that people will do what they say they will do. (PSC Canada, 2007) Jackson (2001) points out, however, that these types of interviews are relatively easy for candidates to anticipate, and so might not actually find the best employees but rather what he calls the best “impression managers.” Other researchers also found that this was often the case in interviews. (Encina, 2004, Iddekinge, et. al., 2004, Simola, et. al., 2007) Thus, the reliability of situational interviews is questionable. 4. The Behavioral Interview Behavioral interviews differ from situational interviews because they address what the candidate actually did in the past. (PSC Canada, 2007) Ideally, the circumstances or contexts of the candidate’s past actions are comparable to the circumstances and requirements of the position for which he is applying. Proponents of the structured behavioral interview such as Turner (2004:18) argue that this type is the most effective because past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. As with situational interviews, the process of a behavioral interview depends on the format in which it is conducted. The questions that are presented can address a wide range of relevant issues, but the key feature is that all the questions deal with real-life instead of hypothetical situations. Examples of behavioral questions are: “Describe the process you used to… [complete a certain past job function]. ” This kind of question is asked when the function of the new job mirrors or is comparable to what the candidate did previously, or is a function that the interviewer is familiar with to the degree that he can make a judgment as to the candidate’s skills and performance. “How many hours did you work per week at your last job?” This is a different kind of behavioral question, one that could give insight into the candidate’s work habits. 4.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Behavioral Interviews Behavioral interviews have validity because they are more focused on actual situations and contexts faced by the candidate in his previous work experience. (PSC Canada, 2007) Their reliability is based on the principle that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, for which there is evidence in psychological research. (Dipboye, 1994: 37, and Turner, 2004: 18) Just as in situational interviews, however, behavioral interviews suffer the same disadvantage of being dependent on the integrity of the people involved in the interview. The validity of the interview is dependent on the interviewer or author of the questions being asked, and whether the questions are sufficiently focused and relevant to the job position. The reliability is dependent on the truthfulness and accuracy of the answers provided by the candidate. As with situational interviews, the existence of these highly-variable human factors makes it difficult if not impossible to determine which of these first two types is more effective. 5. The Performance-Based Interview A performance-based interview, as defined by Jackson (2001) is specific to the job vacancy and the skills required for it, the company culture, and specific issues and concerns within the organization. While this kind of interview might just as easily be classified as a situational or behavioral interview, its very specific nature and a component which requires applicants to address actual job-related issues or questions is what defines it as something different, according to Jackson. Unlike situational or behavioral interviews, the performance-based interview has a fairly standard process. The interview is conducted in two parts, usually – but not necessarily always – by a single interviewer. The questions that are asked are developed by people who actually work in the same position or department, so that they are specifically related to actual work duties. (Jackson, 2001) The second part of the interview is an actual skills test, which can be conducted in whatever format the company deems appropriate; it could be a written test, or an actual hands-on performance of a job task. A very good example of this is described by Encina (2004), where in a test of interview effectiveness candidates for a hypothetical tractor-operator job were asked to follow up a verbal interview with actually maneuvering a tractor through a test course. 5.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Performance-Based Interviews The validity and reliability of this type of interview is clear, and its greatest advantage is that the inclusion of task-specific questions and skills testing can quickly separate candidates who actually know what they’re doing from those who are simply good at talking about it. (Jackson, 2001) What is not clear is if it is truly a different type of structured interview as Jackson claims. It actually seems to be a refined form of behavioral interview. It meets the definition of the former in presenting real-world questions rather than hypothetical ones, and so the major differences seem to lie in its specificity, and the inclusion of a skills test. The obvious disadvantage of performance-based interviews is that they leave little room for so-called “intangibles” such as assessing a candidate’s personality, or his interactions with other people. In some settings, the one-sided focus on job skill and performance may be appropriate, but might give an incomplete picture of a candidate in other, less structured settings. Jobs that involve constantly changing duties and a high level of interaction with other people, such as customer service-oriented positions, might not be effectively filled using performance-based interviews exclusively. 6. Common Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Interview Formats & Techniques While the literature discusses a wide range of interview formats and techniques, there are a relatively small number that are considered standard and common to all structured selective interviews. A set of base questions to be asked of all candidates is considered a legal and professional standard. (PSC Canada, 2007, and U.S. OPM, 2008) Worker-oriented information about the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes required for the position is used to develop interview questions. Job-oriented information provides the tasks, equipment, and situations that allow the questions to be worded in the proper terminology and context. (Campion and Palmer, 1995: 7) The benefit of this technique is that it standardizes the interview for all candidates, which helps to assess them comparatively. The disadvantages that are most often cited (Nevo and Berman, 1994: 89-90, and Campion and Palmer, 1995: 9) are that the validity and reliability of the questions is dependent on the skill and planning used to develop them, which can be variable, and that standardized questions often fail to obtain background information or additional context from candidates that may be helpful in making a decision. Another standard technique in structured selection interviews is using a pre-determined rating scale for assessing candidates. (Turner, 2004: 14, PSC Canada, 2007, and U.S. OPM, 2008) One way of doing this is by using an anchored rating system, which means assigning a rating score to example answers or keywords that might be given by candidates in response to specific questions. (Campion and Palmer, 1995: 30) Any rating system has the advantage of at least potentially eliminating biases and objectively judging candidates on a consistent scale. But the disadvantage, however, is that it is unlikely that every answer from every candidate will exactly fit the scale and some degree of subjective interpretation and opinion will be required from the decision-maker. A third common standard for structured selection interviews is using more than one interviewer for each candidate. This can either be multiple interviews with individual interviewers or an interview by a panel or group. The advantage to this is that “idiosyncratic biases” that may affect an interview with a single interviewer are eliminated. (Campion and Palmer, 1995: 37) The implication is that in situations where some degree of subjective assessment of candidates is unavoidable, a consensus of opinions is at least preferable to a single one. Research results on bias in interviews, however, particularly in single-interviewer situations, are mixed. Gousie (1993: 9-10) found that bias was actually stronger in structured interviews with African-American candidates than in unstructured ones. Clark (1994: 35-36) found, however, no significant evidence of bias in a similar experiment based on gender rather than race. And Encina (2004) when comparing interviewers’ impressions of candidates with their actual performance on skills tests found that bias was just as prevalent in group interviews, since the candidates who were judged the best in the interviews were the worst-performing in skills tests. 7. Are Structured Selection Interviews Really the Best Option? Structured selection interviews are widely considered preferable to unstructured interviews, and are still the most common means of making decisions in hiring. There are, however, varying degrees of disagreement over their effectiveness. Nevo and Berman (1994: 92) found that structured interviews did in fact result in a “reasonable” level of reliability and validity, but in the same study they concluded that a two-part interview consisting of both structured and unstructured phases was more effective. (Nevo and Berman, 1994: 96) Graves and Karren (1996: 174) concluded that structured interviews were more effective, and that they only failed to yield desirable results when interviewers’ “idiosyncrasies” tainted the process. Cliffordson (2002: 204) found that selection interviews were the most reliable and “user-friendly” method for selecting candidates – in the case of his experiment, candidates for admission to a study program – based on a quantitative assessment of empathy between interviewers and candidates. On the other hand, Taylor and O’Driscoll (1995: 4) state flatly that selection interviews of any kind do not result in the best performers being selected for a job. Their contention is backed by evidence given by Jackson (2001) and Encina (2004), which found job performance of the candidates judged best by interviewers did not match expectations. 8. The Disconnect Between Interview Research and Interview Application Drawing a conclusion about the effectiveness of structured selection interviews and the best practices for applying them is in some ways more difficult after studying the research literature than before. Mayfield (2006: 239-240) summarizes the source of this difficulty as a lack of comparability between studies, and too much reliance on previous studies’ results in new research. Dipboye (1994: 86) and Campion and Palmer (1995: 52) both point out that much research does not actually test theory, but is instead aimed at solving specific practical problems. In addition, many researchers have found a widespread lack of application in real-world interview practices of the research that has been done. (Taylor and O’Driscoll, 1995, Ramsay, et. al., 1997, Iddekinge, et. al., 2004, and Simola, et. al., 2007) The more structured an interview, the less dependent the selection is on the authority and opinion of the decision-maker, so resistance to purely structured interviews is perhaps an understandable human reaction. Taylor and O’Driscoll (1995: 4) point out that a common argument made by employers is that selection interviews, particularly open-ended or unstructured ones, are necessary to assess the “intangibles” of personal interaction. It is a difficult argument to refute; a study of historical leaders cited by Hodson (2001: 99) failed to find any common, objectively-measurable traits among them of the intangible quality of “leadership”, something which many employers would regard as a positive attribute of a potential new employee. Conclusion The best practices or most effective theories in selection interviews are impossible to state with clear certainty. Looking at the research overall, however, it is possible to draw some conclusions at what is most likely to be reasonably effective. Structured selection interviews are clearly superior to purely unstructured ones. Apart from research that supports the idea, it simply seems sensible that pre-planning an interview of specific, relevant questions to be asked of all candidates is the most objective way to choose among several candidates for the same position. But structured selection interviews alone seem inadequate. Impressions of candidates gained from interviews often do not match actual performance in skills tests or on the job. (Jackson, 2001 and Encina, 2004) And many employers are resistant to the idea of not including subjective, personality-based questions in interviews, because information they feel would help them make a decision could be omitted. A best recommendation may be a combination of the ideas presented by some of the research, such as: Combining structured and unstructured phases of interviews, as suggested by Nevo and Berman (1994). Narrowing the focus of structured interview questions to specific job duties and circumstances, as suggested by Jackson (2001). Including actual skills testing as part of the interview process to confirm or refute the impressions gather in the interview, as suggested by both Jackson (2001) and Encina (2004). This kind of comprehensive approach seems the most likely to avoid most of the problems highlighted by different research topics. Weaknesses in reliability and validity in some areas, such as the subjective, open-ended phase of the interview, can be balanced by strengths in others, such as skills testing. While this may indeed be a rational and effective approach, however, until further research is conducted and duplicated, the best practices in employee selection may continue to be elusive and subject to debate. Works Cited Blackman, Melinda C. “Personality Judgment and the Utility of the Unstructured Employment Interview.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 24.3 (2002): 241-250. Campion, James E., Michael A. Campion, and David K. Palmer. A Review of Structure in the Selection Interview. 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