Interview Pitfalls
By Sheenagh Beadell
Selecting the best person to join your organization and become a member of your staff team can be a daunting process. How do you ensure that you hire the best possible member for your team?
For employers, the interview is a very important part of the hiring process. However, there are a number of interview factors that can impact your perceptions of candidates and influence the selection outcome. As you prepare for the interview process, it is important to understand that unconscious bias can impact this process and lead you to miss selecting the best candidate.
Following are examples of some of these biases.
Halo Effect
The Halo Effect describes the way in which our first impression of a person, or one particular quality or feature of a person, influences our opinion of his or her total character. This means, for example, that you are likely to attribute positive traits – such as being intelligent, kind and trustworthy – to someone you immediately consider to be likeable. Similarly, you are more likely to attribute negative traits to someone who makes a bad first impression during an interview.
Recency Bias
The Recency Bias occurs when the interviewer is overly influenced by information presented later in the interview process. This could occur if the candidate says something of concern at the end of the interview, and may be more of a factor if the interview process is drawn out.
Hiring in Your Own Image
While most people recognize that the Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on a number of factors including age, sex, race, and religion – it is important to recognize that interviewers may have an unconscious bias towards people who are like themselves. For example, a shared interest in sports or having attended the same university can ease some of the jitters of the interview process by providing something that the candidate and interviewer share in common. Given that the interviewer believes they fit in well with the organization, they may assume that a candidate with similar traits and experiences will also fit in well. The potential danger of this approach to hiring is that you will lose out on the benefits associated with having a more diverse staff team (e.g., different perspectives, unique approaches to problem-solving and so forth).
Skills or Fit
You should never select a new employee on an “either-or” basis in terms of skills or fit as both are very important. Unfortunately, some interviewers select candidates based on their technical abilities without due consideration of how they will fit with the organization in terms of alignment of values, personal attributes and general ability to work effectively with other team members.
In order to avoid falling into one of the interview pitfalls outlined above, it is important to be well-organized for the interview. This includes ensuring that you have selected your interview questions in advance, that you’re clear on the skills and attributes you’re seeking, and that you’re aware of any internal biases that may influence how you view candidates. You also need to document the interview responses provided by each candidate so that you can keep your thoughts organized and have the information you need to evaluate the pros and cons of each candidate in a structured and logical manner.