It’s a common theme that you’ll find repeated over and over in recent research—interview reliability and validity can be greatly improved by adding structure to the interview process.
This is terrific news, but it does beg the question—in practical terms, what exactly does it mean to add structure to an interview?
Below
are eight ways you can add structure to your selection interviews, and in so doing, make it more much likely that you’ll identify the most suitable candidate for the job.
Develop job-related interview questions. The extent to which an interview focuses on the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) required in the job is probably the single most important factor in determining the success of that interview. Competency
profiling—a form of job analysis—provides a clear definition of the KSAOs required for successful job performance.
Basing your interview questions on competency profiles (or tasks identified in an alternative form of job analysis), ensures that those questions are job related. Research on interviews dating back to the 1980s demonstrates very clearly that interviews based on job analysis have higher levels of validity than interviews lacking such a basis.
Use
the same interviewers. When the same interviewers interview all of the job applicants for a particular job, research has shown that the validity of the interviews improves significantly.
Train interviewers. We’re not born effective interviewers, any more than we’re born with an innate knowledge of Microsoft Office. When interviewers are trained, subsequent interviews are more reliable and valid.
Establish a standard
process of evaluation. Scoring guides are a key method for adding structure to the interview process. Research has found that scoring guides with behavioral benchmarks improve interview reliability and validity.
Use panel interviews. Panel interviews are an effective way of maintaining fairness in the interview process. A panel helps keep the interviewers objective with the added benefit of providing more than one person to capture all of the
information.
Take notes during the interviews. Research has shown that note taking by interviewers significantly improves interview validity. This evidence dovetails nicely with company policies that require interviewers to take notes in case of subsequent dispute.
Limit access to supplementary data. Research has repeatedly shown that giving interviewers access to supplementary material about an applicant—anything from
test scores to references—reduces interview validity. It seems that despite our best intentions, it’s all too easy to form an impression about a candidate before the interview has even begun. Restricting the amount of supplementary data available to the interviewer is one way to prevent this from happening.
Make consistent use of a decision model. Once applicants have been assessed on the KSAOs required in the job, a decision has to be made as to who to
hire. Applying an explicit, pre-defined rule when deciding among interviewed applicants improves the validity of the decision-making.
Next Steps
Want
to see how you can improve your hiring processes with a competency-based approach?
Click the button below to access our Complete Guide to Running Competency-based Interviews PDF (no information required).
Learn More About Competency-based Interviewing:
A Step by Step Guide to Running Behavioral Interviews [Free Hiring Guides Included]
The Cost Of A Bad Hire
Post last updated: January 8, 2021
It’s hard to overstate the impact of staffing your organization with the most effective leaders. Studies of managers and companies consistently show that effective leadership improves both internal metrics, like employee retention, and external ones, like financial performance.
Our research on “For All” leaders (as laid out in our book), who intentionally build
trust regardless of who a person is or what they do for the business, demonstrates that the most effective leaders focus on:
Working with teams, seeking ideas from team members and involving them in decisions that affect them.
Recognizing employees, especially by calling out accomplishments and helping employees get ahead in their careers.
Inspiring employees to follow by
showing them that leaders are competent, honest and reliable.
So how do you cultivate leaders like this at your company?
1. Identify the most important behaviors for great managers at your organization
While certain characteristics of manager effectiveness apply across most companies, true insights come from identifying the unique behaviors that best align with your organization’s mission, culture, customer needs and
strategic goals.
First, identify the managers inside your organization who build high-trust relationships. Employee survey data is a source of truth here.
Interview these managers and ask them “how” they did what they did. Use this information to identify three to five behaviors that create a great work environment and share
them across your organization.
2. Build trust
Employees follow their leaders when they trust in them. They trust managers because they believe them to be competent, honest and reliable.
You can instill trust for your leadership in three ways:
Create credibility: Do what you say you are going to do. If you promise your
employee a project or learning opportunity, follow through on your word.
Be respectful:Ensuring your people are set up for success. Arm them with the resources and support they need to do their best work.
Make fair decisions: This is fundamental for building trust in your management effectiveness, especially when it
comes to promotion decisions and for people who are different than you (whether gender, racial background or tenure).
3. Be a true collaboratorWork with your team to co-create plans and concoct new
ideas.
This doesn’t mean reaching consensus or decision-making by committee. We’re talking about real involvement and collaboration.
Improve collaboration by:
Involving your team in decisions that affect them. Get their feedback before decisions are made, for example, moving to new office space and address any concerns they have about the change.
Seeking employees' opinions on the next problem you’re trying to solve.
Having
regular one-to-ones and informal conversations, such as staffroom lunches and coffees away from the office.
These effective management behaviors will make your employees feel included, valued and in turn, inspired to do their best work.
4. Make employee recognition your ritual
Employee recognition shows employees their contributions are recognized and appreciated. A study of
employee engagement by O.C. Tanner showed that personal recognition is the number one driver of employee performance — more than pay, promotions, inspiring work, training or autonomy.
Leaders can make recognition part of their manager ritual by:
Having
recognition “triggers” - for example, tangible goals with upfront guidance to managers on how to communicate the goals and track them.
Making it easy for managers to celebrate employees. For example, Hotel chain Hilton gives managers an annual “Recognition Calendar” with easy-to-implement ideas to thank
employees every day of the year.
5. Rethink how you promote your people
If managing a larger team is the only way to a promotion at your company, you may want to rethink your promotion process. Some people may be more valuable to the organization as an individual contributor or a part of a team.
Smart companies (and effective managers) create multiple avenues to success for employees. They:
Help people earn new responsibilities and develop their skills through new projects, lateral moves and stretch assignments.
Take an active role in employees’ development plans.
Keep an eye out for additional ways employees can add value to a project or lend their expertise to something outside of their general scope of responsibilities.
6. Flip the traditional performance process
It's common for managers to rate
and review their employees, but great managers want feedback to flow both ways. They make sure their employee surveys not only look at organizational culture as a whole, but management effectiveness, too.
At Certified™ companies, all employees rate management on all
five of the above behaviors in their Trust Index Survey.
Employees reflect on management’s behavior, whether management shows a sincere interest in them as a person, not just an employee, and how much management’s actions match its words. This authentic feedback gives a nuanced picture of management effectiveness.
Help employees become
influential people managers
Want to support your people managers in realizing their full potential? Our culture management platform and employee survey gives managers access to their own people data. Managers can get a nuanced understanding of how effectively they are managing their team.
Using data-driven insights, start
understanding and improving your management effectiveness today - ask us how Great Place to Work can help.
