Comments on: 7 Ways to Minimize Perception-driven Hiring Mistakes

By: Kes Thygesen

Kes Thygesen — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:16:01 +0000

You hit the nail on its head, Lou! Having biases about anyone is only natural, but how we handle these biases is what affects our day-to-day lives. I’m a big fan of using positive and negative reinforcement strategies to elicit the responses you desire to see. Asking more difficult questions to candidates you perceive as top-notch and assuming expert-level knowledge in candidates you perceive to be lower on food chain is doing exactly that. Great tips.

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Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:34:57 +0000

[...] 7 Ways to Minimize Perception-driven Hiring Mistakes by Lou Adler (@ERE_net) [...]

By: Keith Halperin

Keith Halperin — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:25:12 +0000

Thanks Lou. You’ve hit upon the basis for Behavioral Recruiting (not Behavioral Interviewing)- the application of Behavioral Economics and Cognitive Science to recruiting. It says that while we may think we are “rational actors,” we are all susceptible to a large variety of cognitive biases which influence our decision-making. You’ve described a number of effective ways of recognizing and dealing with these biases.

Cheers,

Keith

By: Ronald Katz

Ronald Katz — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 18:57:08 +0000

Excellent piece, Lou! Managers who hire based on their “gut” drive me nuts!
Your opening premise about candidates is spot on. If your first impression is to like someone, you judge them based on their intentions. If your first impression is less positive, we tend to judge them based on their results. One of the subtlest forms of bias.

Thanks for highlighting this technique to avoid it.
Ron Katz

By: Richard Melrose

Richard Melrose — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:04:55 +0000

While a “performance profile” may include elements of a job analysis, work outcomes often leave the “how to” hidden or fuzzy. That makes candidate’s job-related capability harder to accurately assess.

Interviewing constitutes one of the weaker (least valid, least predictive) assessment methods, particularly when the interviews are unstructured and feed a downstream “group grope” hiring decision exercise.

Asking different questions of “halo” and “horns” candidates would mean that selection procedures were not uniformly applied. That’s a regulatory compliance no no.

A better approach would start with a formal job analysis and then use valid, job-related, assessments, with high combined predictive validity for job performance and job learning, as a first course; and then complete the process with “same for all” structured interviews, with documented responses scored according to well defined scales.

Regulatory compliance with the 1978 Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures and best selection practices are still one in the same.

r.melrose@vision21.us