Interviews are almost a mandatory process that organizations go through before deciding to hire a new employee. In such selection interviews, one or more interviewers typically conduct the interview, using structured or unstructured interviews within less than an hour to judge whether the candidate is suitable for the position. However, this short-time interview-based selection process is often challenged by issues such as candidates faking, exaggerating, and interviewer biases. Despite this, many interviewers today still have unwavering confidence in their judgments after the interview. When an interviewer determines that one of the candidates is the best performer, the interviewer is more likely to offer that candidate a higher salary or better benefits and not interview other candidates.
Why do interviewers have such unwavering confidence in their judgments during a short interview? Scholars have previously explained this phenomenon through “overconfidence,” which is defined as a person’s unfounded belief that their answer is correct. In a study on interviewers, it was found that interviewers who evaluated both candidates’ test results and unstructured interview results exhibited more overconfidence than those who only evaluated the candidates’ test results. This is not just an inconsistency in judgment, but due to the interviewers placing too much emphasis on the results of unstructured interviews, they are unable to correctly measure valid cues. The test results distributed to interviewers in the study included conscientiousness and general mental ability, which past research has found to predict job performance well, while unstructured interviews do not. Current research indicates that interviewers not only underestimate the effectiveness of general mental ability as a predictor but also overestimate the effectiveness of unstructured interviews. Of course, in the selection process, interviewers have many considerations, including the candidate’s fit with the job, organization, and people, or whether the candidate’s abilities and experience can help the team. Unstructured interviews can still obtain a lot of relevant information at this time.
However, according to scholars’ research, if the organization’s goal is to hire the best candidates, managers should avoid using unstructured interviews. This is because it increases the interviewer’s overconfidence and therefore fails to select the best talent, ultimately reducing the company’s profits.
Photo by @officestock on Unsplash