Recruitment and Selection
Staffing is a complex, multifaceted process that affects all areas of the organization but is particularly important with regard to organizational effectiveness. As such, the organization strives to attract, motivate, and retain a workforce with the appropriate characteristics to achieve the organization’s mission, strategy, goals, and objectives. Viewing staffing as a continuous process rather than a discrete event (e.g., hiring a particular individual), is an essential component of virtually all contemporary staffing models and conceptualizations. Staffing includes recruitment, selection, employment, and retention and is strongly affected by numerous laws and external conditions that bear directly on organizational employment processes.
The employment interview, a conversation with the purpose of gathering information about an applicant’s suitability for hire, does suffer from a number of shortcomings. Research has criticized interviews as unreliable and subject to a number of judgmental errors. The first impression that is formed of an applicant by an interviewer, almost instantaneously, whether positive or negative, is resistant to change even when disconfirming evidence is available. One of the most important aspects when interviewing a potential job candidate is giving an accurate talent evaluation rating. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Other factors besides performance often get in the way and influence the interviewer assessment, these include:
Talking too much and veering off point.
Asking leading questions and causing candidates to answer in ways they think the interviewer expects, making it impossible to get an honest response.
Invading the interviewee’s privacy by asking personal and lifestyle questions.
Conducting intimidating and high-pressure interviews, stressing out the candidate in a bid to simulate high-pressure situations.
Rushing through the interview process.
Rating candidates against each other due to a lack of established criteria for evaluating all candidates.
Failing to prepare adequately, and not reading a candidate’s resume beforehand.
Poorly structured encounters. Asking questions off the cuff.
Not being straightforward. Presenting a realistic overview of the position, including its less appealing facets. Causing candidates to feel deceived when they do not make an informed decision.
Being blinded by personal preferences, which form a basis for bias.
Acts of rudeness, like being late, ending the interview abruptly, canceling at the last minute without an apology, reading emails and taking phone calls during the interview.
Questions:
1) Is the interview process innately flawed?
2) How can organizations ensure that bias & evaluation errors are minimized in their selection process?
3) Can these sources of bias be completely eliminated?