What are the major problems of the interview as a selection device?

Answer 1

One of the major problems with using an interview as a selection device is that the only information you receive about a candidate in an interview is what the candidate decides to tell you. For this reason, it is important to prepare questions that will get the candidate to give you the information you want about the candidate. The interviewer must have a direction for the interview, without necessarily dictating the conversation or the interviewer won't know much about the candidate.

One major problem with interviews is "interviewer bias". An interviewer must be open to meeting all types of people, and to keep stereotypes out of the selection process. Allow the candidate to reveal him or herself through answers to the interviewer's carefully chosen questions.

Leave some time for free discussion. Just as open-ended questions reveal more about a person in general, allowing a candidate to "tell about" themselves, their experiences, or life experiences can often tell you much more than direct questions. However, one of the pitfalls of free discussion can occur with candidates who are shy, lack confidence, or are unable to "think on their feet". Interviewers must be careful to not reject a candidate who can't talk about himself easily; some of these skills are learned through employment and aging.

It is also very important to look into the candidate outside of the interview. Google the candidate. Perform a background check on the applicant. You do not want to make your hiring decision purely from what you hear in an interview. Be sure to back up the facts you hear from the candidate through other sources. However, carefully weigh other sources for integrity vs. gossip, and in comparison with the person you met.

Making a bad hiring decision will cost a company a lot of resources (monetary and non-monetary). But, on the opposite side of the coin, rejecting a candidate based solely on here-say from internet sources could also cost the company when a competitor sees the "gem in the rough".

Answer 2

Interviews can be reliable and valid selection tools, but too often they are not. When interviews are structured and well organized, and when interviews are held to common questioning, interviews are effective predictors. But those conditions do not characterize many interviews. The typical interview--in which applicants are asked a varying set of essentially random questions in an informal setting--often provides little in the way of valuable information.

All kinds of potential bias can creep into interviews if they are not well structured and standardized, such as:

Prior knowledge about the applicant will bias the interviewer's evaluation.

The interviewer tends to hold a stereotype of what represents a "good" applicant.

The interviewer tends to favor applicants who share his or her own attitudes.

The order in which applicants are interviewed will influence evaluations.

Negative information is given unduly high weight.

The interviewer may make a decision concerning the applicant's suitability within the first four or five minutes.

The interviewer may forget much of the interview's content within minutes after its conclusion unless he/she take notes.