Bias interviews. Moreover, why they don’t work.

Many people view that the most critical part of a job interview is the beginning. That is when the candidate has an opportunity to make a great impression—or a not so good one—on you. Moreover, it is another time that bias creeps in. One boss, I worked for told me that he knew within the first 30 seconds whether the person had a shot at getting hired.

Forming the first impression of someone takes seconds. Luckily, most hiring managers take more time to develop their opinion. A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology found that interviewers’ time to decide were as follows:

• 9 percent of decisions were made within one minute
• 2 percent between 1 minute and 5 minutes
• 7 percent between 5 minutes and 15 minutes
• 7 percent of decisions made after 15 minutes
• 5 percent made after the interview had ended

Thus, almost 80% of selection decisions are made before the interview ends. So much for the objective scoring matrix after the interview!

The fact that interviewers with more experience and higher interviewing efficacy [i.e., more confidence] tend to make quicker decisions is particularly troubling,” the researchers said, “as such individuals may have a large impact on which applicants are brought into an organization.”

Bias is an inherent part of life

Bias is present in most circles, and for the most part, it is unconscious or unintentional. Maybe you have been guilty of switching off or rolling your eyes when a vegan even looks like they are going to speak about food. Alternatively, perhaps you assume somebody is less intelligent if he or she has a large visible tattoo. The bottom line is that we tend to apply more value to what our mirror reflects.

However, this is a problem when you are relying on an individual impartially assessing another person’s skills, personality, and suitability for a job. In fact, a well-respected study conducted by Schmidt and Hunter in 1998 found that job interviews can only predict about 14% of the variability in employee performance. Job interviews are poor predictors of future work performance. Previously I shared an insight—This is why job interviews are worse than useless. The research tells us they are much worse than that—they bias us against more reliable predictors.

Bias creeps into the standard interview process

We have refined our hiring process over the years to select the best candidate for the job. However, bias still creeps in.

Candidates who come from privileged backgrounds can source impressive, well-connected referrers. This perpetuates the cycle of privilege. While the referrer’s reputation and clout make up one aspect of the recommendation, what they say completes the picture.

Research shows gender bias even invades in the content of recommendations. In this study, female applicants for post-doctoral research positions in the field of geoscience were only half as likely as their male counterparts to receive excellent (as opposed to just good) endorsements from their referees. Since it is unlikely that of the 1200 recommendation letters analyzed, female candidates were less worthy than the male candidates. Something else is going on.

Recommendations aren’t good predictors of performance

Are recommendations helpful, valid indicators of future job performance or are they based on outdated traditions that we keep enforcing?

In the 1990s, researchers were trying to alert hiring managers to the ineffectiveness of this as a tool, noting some significant problems:

• leniency—referees are chosen by the candidate and tend to be overly positive
• too little knowledge of the applicant—referees are unlikely to see all aspects of a prospective employees’ work and personal character
• reliability—it turns out there is a higher agreement between two letters written by the same referee for different candidates than there is for two letters (written by two different referees) for the same candidate!

There is evidence that people behave in different ways when they are in different situations at work, which would reasonably lead to varying recommendations from various referees. However, the fact that there is more consistency between what referees say about different candidates than between what different referees say about the same candidate remains a problem.

We gravitate toward people who are like us

According to the similarity-attraction hypothesis, we tend to like people who are like us — whether that means they come from the same state or sport the same haircut.

One way to explain that phenomenon is that people with a decent level of self-esteem are satisfied with their personalities. So, when they see their qualities reflected in someone else, they tend to like that person, too.”—Madan Pillutla, London Business School

Another potential explanation is that people have evolved to like people who look and act the way they do. At one point in human history, it was important to trust only people in your small social group. Even though that behavior is no longer necessary today, we can still act as though it is.

Often we are unaware of our biases. This results in interviews being inefficient and judgmental. You end up having an organization of people who think similarly, who act similarly. We end up creating similar teams that are less creative, less efficient. However, research suggests that diversity of backgrounds and perspectives is essential to a company's success—up to 30% more profitable.

Prejudicial bias

This one is simple and unfortunately also one of the most common. Unconscious and conscious bias against a race, gender, religion or social class, etc., can impede or cloud an interview from the moment an interviewer picks up a resume. A recent study found that people applying for the same job, but with Asian names (Indian, Pakistani or Chinese in origin) were 28% less likely to get called for an interview compared to applicants with Anglo names, even if all the qualifications, skills, age and experience were the same. This is also closely linked to stereotyping, and it is incredible how often bias seeps into an interview. Another example of this is that the Schmidt and Hunter study found that applicant being obese can have a 35% variation on the result of an interview.

Stereotypes about people's competencies

One typical example of stereotyping that Americans tend to assume Indians who come to the US are skilled at math. So American hiring managers might be inclined to select an Indian candidate for a math-heavy position because they think he or she will excel in that role — even though it is possible another candidate could be more skilled in that area.

However, while it is possible to unlearn ethnic biases, stereotypes about gender tend to be a little deeper and harder to reverse. One recent study found that people were more likely to hire a male candidate over a female candidate to perform a mathematical task, even when they learned that the candidates would perform equally well.

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is an odd thing that humans do wherein we seek out information or find answers that confirm a preconceived notion we have in our heads. An example of this is Donald Trump crying out at “the FAKE NEWS media” for reporting negatively against him. This preconceived notion is then ‘confirmed’ every time a media outlet communicates negatively against him. In an interview situation, it easy to see how this can lead to bias. When an interviewer has already decided something about a candidate based on where they went to university or their job history, for instance, it invariably results in a biased interview.

Conclusion bias

This is a tough one to counteract. Conclusion bias is essentially confirming everything you have ever read about first impressions. A series of experiments by Princeton psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov reveal that all it takes is a tenth of a second to form an impression of a stranger from their face and that longer exposures do not significantly alter those impressions (although they might boost your confidence in your judgments).

Another study concluded that you have on average 30-60 seconds to make an excellent first impression. This study was even able to confirm the long-suspected phenomena that attractive people do get better outcomes in practically all walks of life. Aside from this however people with “mature” faces when in trouble receive more severe punishments than “baby-faced” people. They also found that having a face that looks competent (as opposed to trustworthy or likable) is a significant factor in whether a person gets elected to a public office. The point remains however that if an interviewer views you as unattractive or does not like your outfit, then your odds in the process fall steeply.

Intuition

Some people have good intuition, and some people have bad intuition. The problem is that due to the nature of people, everybody who relies on their intuition believes theirs is right. That’s the thing, some people still advocate for intuition (“Trust your gut”), but how can you possibly expect one person to interview every single candidate on every single role to be able to apply the same rules across the board? Your intuition will be different from mine – no unified assessment.

Intuition is a highly sophisticated process. We notice patterns through past experiences, store these patterns and associated information into long-term memory, and then retrieve the data when we see these patterns again in our environment.

When can we trust that information? When the expert operates in a high-validity environment, and when they’ve had enough practice to learn its regular patterns.

This means we are likely to have reliable intuitions in specific domains and weak ones in others. Think of our intuitions as a compass and the world as a vast land dotted with areas of high magnetic resonance. The compass is invaluable in specific regions and, corrupted by the magnetic field, misleading in others. One of the most essential tasks of professionals is to draw a map for ourselves, so we know when to trust the compass and when to put it away. Selection is one of those areas where we need other indicators to ensure we are going in the right direction.

Perceive as a threat to our status in the organization

In an organization with a highly competitive culture, according to research, managers might be disinclined to bring on someone more competent than they are, especially if they feel insecure in their role.

Even if people are well-meaning and well-intentioned, it's very difficult to act against your own self-interest" by hiring someone who could outperform you”—Madan Pillutla

100 years of research in personnel selection

Frank Schmidt, University of Iowa et al., updated the 1998 study in 2016. Their paper summarizes the practical and theoretical implications of a century of research in personnel selection. They examined the validity of 31 procedures for predicting job performance. General mental ability (GMA) had a mean validity of .65.

They also assessed the validity of paired combinations of general mental ability (GMA) and the 29 other selection procedures. Overall, the two combinations with the highest multivariate validity and utility for predicting job performance:

• GMA plus an integrity test (mean validity of .78)
• GMA plus a structured interview (mean validity of .76)

Similar results were obtained for these two combinations in the prediction of performance in job training programs. They can be used for both entry-level hiring and selection of experienced job applicants. The practical utility implications of their findings are substantial.

In fact, many employers, both in the United States and throughout the world, are currently using suboptimal selection methods. For example, many organizations in France, Israel, and some other countries hire new employees based on handwriting analyses by graphologists(mean validity of .00). And, in the U.S. many organizations rely on measures of “emotional intelligence” (mean validity of .23), person-job fit (mean validity of .18), or person-organization fit (mean validity of .13) measures. In a competitive world, these organizations are unnecessarily creating a competitive disadvantage for themselves (Schmidt, 1993). By adopting more valid hiring procedures, they could turn this competitive disadvantage into a competitive advantage.”—Frank Schmidt

There is a better way

By combining multiple assessments into one tool, SuccessFinder Is the best in the industry at predicting success in a given role. SuccessFinder predicts the success of a candidate with 85% reliability. Its reliability is ranked the highest in the industry — at level C1 — by the American Psychological Association for its accuracy.

The discriminating factors — behavioral traits and competencies plus knowledge and skills are vital in determining performance. High performers in each role share a common subset of behaviors. Our talent analytics compares each candidate's profile with top performers. We predict the likelihood of a candidate meeting or exceeding expectations.

An Insurance Company recently advised that 93% of its sales advisors pinpointed by SuccessFinder as high performers met or exceeded performance expectations one year later. The company avoided over $150K in training and onboarding costs due to better hires with higher retention rates.

Inherent human bias may blur selection processes

This is a real problem. Skilled candidates being overlooked because of something absurd like their name or origin. Companies are missing out on talented candidates. I shared Valuable Lessons from Pro Sports, in their selection processes. These pro teams draft high potential and expect top performers. The objectively assess talent.

Now, many orchestras hold "blind auditions," in which the musicians perform behind a screen, so they do not know what the candidates look like. As a result, they have hired more women.

In fact, some companies in other fields have already implemented similar hiring strategies.

Bias is so wrong—enter our best-fit staffing

High performer outperforms average performers by more than 400%.  However, the current selection process can find only find an average performer about 50% of the time. Occasionally a company gets lucky, about 1 in 10, and hires a high-potential employee. It only turns about half the high potential employees into high-performer thus only 5% of your recruits become high-performers. The status quo for recruitment is to the detriment of all involved.

Our best-fit staffing process focuses on removing bias. Our unique algorithm does not care about your name, race, gender, age, or origin. These factors do not determine if the candidate will meet or exceed expectations. We compare the candidate’s behavioral traits with those of high performers in the role.

Your interview process should be to determine which of the high-potential candidates are the best fit for your organization. We conduct a deep level screening of candidates using behavioral science approach, so you only see the candidates who have been matched to your company and the position. Improve your process and know you are getting good fits so that you can leave your intuition at the door.