How to Improve Job Interviews: Reduce Bias & Hire the Right Candidate

Hiring decisions are some of the most important decisions any organisation or business makes. It is costly to get it wrong. But it is also an important decision for the candidate, thus, having a fair, efficient and effective hiring process is important for all parties. Ironically however, while the Australian economy has seen amazing innovations and productivity growth over the last 50 years there has been limited innovation in hiring methods. It is still the case that many organisations continue with the “traditional” recruitment method of review CVs, interview and reference checks.

Why Traditional Interviews are Unreliable

This traditional approach is unreliable and a poor way to predict good future employees. There are many reasons why they are unreliable, but one of the main reasons is due to selection decisions being made on first impressions, gut feel and the confidence many have in their own flawless judgements.

Humans are hardwired to make decisions based on emotion before reason. That that does not mean we cannot over-ride these behaviours and develop hiring processes that factor in our hardwired behaviours and use them to our advantage. Every human being on the planet has cognitive biases and they evolved for a good reason, however, in the modern workplace these biases need to be understood and accounted for in your decision-making processes; we don’t have to be slaves to our emotions.

Face-to-face interviews have long been viewed as relatively inconsistent and unreliable. To add to that, interviews often have the reputation as make-or-break-moments in the hiring process, when in fact, if they are not done properly, are the weakest link in the hiring process.

Interviews tend to conflate two very different questions: “Would you want to work with this person?” and “Would this person be a good worker?” Interviewing a candidate may give you a helpful answer to the first question but frequently offers little insight into the second. A personable candidate doesn’t always make a great employee.

Interviews Should be an Exchange of Information

Nevertheless, the face-to-face interview isn’t going anywhere, nor should it. Whilst there are flaws with interviews, when done properly, they are fundamental to the hiring process. Interviews are more than just getting information from the candidate; it is a two-way process; it is an exchange of information. We want to give candidates enough information about the role so they can make an informed decision, and that the role matches their expectations.

Structured vs Unstructured Interviews

Interviews can be split into two general categories: structured and unstructured. A structured interview asks a specific set of questions in a standardised format. This creates a uniform experience for both the interviewer and interviewee. Unstructured interviews, on the other hand, take a more improvisational approach; the conversation is meant to flow organically but can lack direction. These are particularly ineffective predictors of success, allowing employers to unknowingly build false narratives around their perception of the interviewee.

Because structured interviews help to minimise bias by standardising the interview process, they are widely regarded as a more productive way to predict actual job performance than unstructured interviews.

The Gold Standard Hiring Process: Steps to a More Effective Hiring Process

What is the most effective, fair and efficient hiring process? It starts with the job advertisement.

Clearly Define Your Hiring Process in the Job Advertisement

Include the hiring process in your job advertisement so candidates know before they apply what is involved. The job advertisements we do for our clients always includes the following:

Recruitment Process:

·        A brief telephone conversation to confirm details of the role and arrange a telephone interview.

·        Telephone interview. 

·        Online psychometric testing.

·        Face-to-face interview.

·        Reference & probity checks. 

Document Preparation

In the spirit of the selection process being an exchange of information, there are some documents that we would recommend you send to candidates early in the process. Aside from having an interview schedule prepared, it is important to send candidates some information about the organisation, the hiring process and a code of conduct or similar type of document.

Review Applicants & Cull

Rate your applicants against the selection criteria using a scoring rubric to give each candidate a score based on the selection criteria. Cull the unsuitable candidates and develop a short list in descending rating score order of the suitable candidates. If it is a long short-list just start with the top 4 and keep the others on the bench, so to speak.

First Contact with Short-list

Make telephone contact with each candidate using the interview schedule and confirm they are still interested in the role and ascertain they have the minimum basic essential criteria, such as working rights, qualifications, salary expectation, work location and work hours. From this arrange a time for a 10 to 15-minute structured telephone interview. Send the candidate the documents as mentioned above and ask them to acknowledge receipt of the email and for them to review the documents before the telephone interview. Record the candidate’s behaviour and responses.

Conduct a Structured Phone Screening

Conduct the telephone interview as per the interview schedule and from that decide whether to cull or continue to the next step, which is psychometric testing. If one or two of your short-list were culled, go back to your original scoring sheet and choose the next candidate and start the process with them.

Psychometric Testing

Arrange for the candidate to undergo a battery of tests relevant to the role. That said, for most roles a battery of tests that covers IQ, EQ and personality is sufficient.

Obviously, we would encourage you to use Fermion for your psychometric testing, however, there are other providers out there who are almost as good as us.

After the testing is administered and interpreted, it is time to either cull or continue to the face-to-face interview.

Face-to-Face Interview: The Final Step

It should be apparent now that the face-to-face interview is essentially the last step in the hiring process. Reference checks are last and whilst necessary, we give them the least weight.

Putting the face-to-face interview last is essential in our quest to have a more reliable and effective interviews. By screening and culling, the panel only gets to interview good candidates and in doing so, the panel can use their intuition and gut feel to their advantage. Putting the face-to-face interview last is a simple, yet an incredibly effective way of improving your hiring decisions.

Set the Right Tone

There is a thought experiment called the “gossip test”, which isn’t unique to recruitment, whereby you ask yourself what you want the candidate to say to their partner after the job interview. Do you want them to say how warm, friendly and welcoming you were, and thus make a good impression about the organisation. Or do you want them to say that they were kept waiting and everyone was rude and unfriendly. The important point about the gossip test is that candidates will 100% talk about their experience to their friends and loved ones and knowing that you will be talked about help shapes yours and the panel’s behaviour. Your behaviour reflects the organisation and will be noticed by the candidate.

Assuming you are going for a positive first impression, the introduction you give to the candidates is important. We encourage our clients to use the following type of introduction:

“We would ask you to try and relax as we want this to be a free-flowing interview and conversation. We would ask you to be open and honest with your responses and in turn we will be open and honest to you. The recruitment process is a two-way exercise – we are learning about you, and you are learning about us, and it is in both of our interests that if you were employed with us that it works out; it’s an important decision for both of us. Does that make sense?” Just be yourself. You don’t have to know all things to all questions and having areas for improvement is okay. Plus, please ask us any questions you may have to help you determine if this is the right role for you”.



Questions before the Interview?

Do you give the candidates the questions before the interview? This is an example where there is no right or wrong approach and whatever approach you adopt it is fundamental that all candidates are treated the same. Standardising the process is crucial in your attempt to make the best hiring decision. Standardisation allows for more meaningful comparisons between candidates.

We encourage our clients to give the candidates the questions before the interview with the instructions that it will be a 45-minute interview, and they need to answer the questions in that time. Give the candidates 15 minutes to prepare and during that time the panel can review the available data and prepare for the candidate. By giving the candidate the questions beforehand one would expect higher quality answers.

Structured Interview

Absolutely use a structured interview with the prepared interview schedule. Conduct the interview and score each candidate. The actual interview schedule is a topic for another post, but it is important to have that developed before the hiring process starts and the questions reflect the demands of the role.

Decide

The panel decides on the day about the suitability of each candidate. They already have a lot of information about the candidate and as the face-to-face interview is last, this allows them to decide on the day while all the information is fresh and easy to recall.

Summary

Interviews are an essential component of the hiring process, however, if not done properly they will introduce a lot of error or noise into your decision-making. By placing the structured interview last, you are using our hardwired behaviours and biases to your advantage. By screening and culling candidates before the face-to-face interview, you are setting the scene whereby the panel only interviews good candidates, therefore the panel’s biases and intuition are used to their advantage. The successful candidate needs to be able to technically do the role, but you also need to feel comfortable with the successful candidate and this is where your gut and intuition is important.  

Want to improve your hiring process?  Contact Fermion for expert psychometric testing solutions.

About the Author:

Fermion specialises in psychometric testing for recruitment. Please contact Fermion to discuss how a test of IQ, EQ and a personality profile, or any other psychometric test, can help with you your recruitment decisions.

Christopher Apps is a Workplace Psychologist and the owner of Fermion. He stays updated on the latest psychology research and shares evidence-based insights. The focus of Fermion is "Psychometric Testing for Recruitment" and “Recruitment to Retention: How to Select Good Staff & Keep Them”. If you would like to learn how to select good staff and keep them, please feel free to contact us at Fermion.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt.