Most selections involve a phase of unstructured interviews, which is common practice for both HR and interview candidates. Although numerous decision-support tools (such as paper-and-pencil tests or structured interviews) have been developed through empirical research to reduce subjective prediction errors, Terpstra (1996) sampled 201 HR managers to understand the effectiveness of various selection methods. The respondents believed that traditional unstructured interviews were more effective than any paper-and-pencil assessment procedures. However, actual effectiveness shows that paper-and-pencil tests usually outperform unstructured interviews, indicating a significant gap between perception and reliability. Additionally, “evidence-based management” refers to making decisions based on data analysis (Ayers, 2007), but currently, data-driven selection applications seem to be limited to sports drafts.
So why do most companies still insist on using intuition and subjective judgment-reliant unstructured interviews as the main stage of selection, rather than relying on data-supported evidence? The article reveals three possible reasons:
- Implicit Beliefs: The article cites two American cases – the Civil Service Commission’s statement that tests are not the only standard for selection and the Supreme Court ruling that personalized selection methods are fairer and more reliable than scientific selection methods. These two examples illustrate two implicit beliefs about selection: people believe they can achieve near-perfect accuracy in predicting employee performance, and they believe they can predict professional expertise through intuition.
- Unquantifiable Uncertainty: The key distinction between using intuitive inference or rational analysis lies in “acceptance of future uncertainty.” The vagueness of outcome possibilities (e.g., the unknown chance of surgery success) can evoke more optimism than known low probabilities (e.g., a 20% chance of surgery success) (Kuhn, 1997). The author also suggests that people must be willing to accept mistakes first to reduce their recurrence.
- Myth of Expertise: People believe that experience can improve the prediction of human behavior, such as increased sensitivity from participating in multiple interviews. However, this myth of expertise leads to over-reliance on intuition, unwilling to use rational decision-support tools that might undermine their credibility.
Often, interviewers trust their feelings and inferences about candidates, ignoring the factual basis provided by existing analytical tools. Statistics show that more than one-third of HRs agree on the effectiveness of using test-based assessments in selection, yet more than one-third of HRs still believe that aimless conversations with candidates can glean some clues to infer the candidates’ traits and abilities.
Photographer: Christina Morillo Link：Pexels