Rethinking the Job Interview

Professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic wrote a terrific Fast Company column recently titled, "What If We Killed The Job Interview?"  He summarizes the argument against relying so heavily on interviews to evaluate job candidates: 

  

The most comprehensive scientific study to date on the predictive power of different recruitment tools suggests that the typical job interview provides very little valuable information over and above psychometric tests, which tend to be both quicker and cheaper to administer.

For example, once you know a candidate’s score on a test of general learning ability, a typical job interview will only improve your ability to predict their performance in a given role by 4%, the analysis found. Interviews are more useful when they’re totally structured and standardized, to the point of resembling a multiple-choice questionnaire; this can increase their accuracy by up to 13%. Yet very few real-world interviews follow a rigorous format. Interviewers usually prefer to go with the flow, stubbornly relying on their own intuition.

Most of the attributes interviewers try to evaluate by gut feel–a candidate’s competencies, skills, personality, values, “culture fit,” and so on–are more rigorously inferred from other data like resumes, simulations, tests, and past performance ratings. Interviews certainly create opportunities for candidates to make claims about these qualities, but as I argue in my latest book, there’s little reason to believe them. Indeed, there’s not much overlap between the talents people saythey have and the ones they actually possess. (Plus, interviewers often use the idea of “good culture fit” to justify hiring people from their own in-groups.)

As Chamorro-Premuzic points out, though, many business professionals can't let go of the interview as a principal tool for evaluating job candidates.  Why?  People THINK that they are awesome talent evaluators, and that they can conduct an interview much more effectively than most others can.  Our supreme self-confidence clouds our judgment about the validity of interviewing.  If we kill the interview, though, how can we judge talent?  We have to find other ways for people to demonstrate what they have actually accomplished, rather than simply asking them to describe their skills and capabilities.  We have to see them in action, rather than letting them simply talk about themselves.  It's time to rethink the hiring process from start to finish.  

Résumé Mistakes

What are some the classic mistakes that job hunters make on résumés?  Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations at Google, has posted a good article on LinkedIn with the top five common mistakes that he has seen.  It's a good list.  Here are Bock's top five, with some commentary from me:

1. Typos

I would expand his point to include grammatical errors, particularly on the cover letters that accompany résumés.  Poor writing plagues many cover letters.   Examples of writing deficiencies include:  overly complex sentences, improper use of commas and conjunctions, far too much use of the passive voice, and poor paragraph construction.  The list could go on! 

2.  Length

As Bock says, you should be aiming to land a first round interview, not to tell your life story.  You can expand the story during the interviews.  Focus on getting your foot in the door.

3.  Formatting

Bock recommends saving the document as a PDF since other formats can become troublesome as they are passed electronically across various platforms and devices.  Good advice!  He also argues that it should be a clean, easy-to-read document.  I would emphasize the need for plenty of white space.    You do not to jam every inch of the page with words.

4.  Confidential Information

Bock uses the example of a consultant who clearly reveals the names of clients.   Many consulting firms have confidentiality policies.  If an applicant breaks their current or past employer's confidentiality policy, that's a major problem.  

5.  Lying

Lying on résumés appears to occur quite often.  We have just seen a senior executive at Wal-Mart who lost his job due to a lie about his educational background.  We've seen CEOs lose their jobs over these types of lies.  I think the harder-to-detect lies are even more common, specifically exaggerating job responsibilities and accomplishments.  I also think that résumés sometimes fail to give proper credit to those who helped an individual achieve certain goals at a prior employer.  Was it a team effort?  Does the résumé reflect the fact that a team achieved the goal, not just that individual?  Not giving others proper credit seems to be a major issue in the job application process.