VISION AND MISSION

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The Employment Interview Structure and Validity
Michael M. Woodward March 3rd, 2005
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Overview

• The Employment Interview
• The Structured Interview
• Validity of Structured Interviews
• Application of Structured Interviews
• Group Discussion

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The Employment Interview

• A dialogue initiated by one or more persons to
  gather information and evaluate the
  qualifications of an applicant (Dipboye, 1992)

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The Employment Interview

• A two-way communication process that involves
  (Cascio, 1998)
• First Impressions
• Expectancies
• Verbal Cues
• Nonverbal Cues
• Stereotypes
• Use of Criteria

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What is examined in interviews?

• Taxonomy of Interview Constructs (Huffcutt et al.
  2001)
• Personality Tendencies
• Applied Social Skills
• Mental Capability
• Knowledge and Skills
• Interests and Preferences
• Physical Attributes
• Organizational Fit

Account for about 60 of all rated characteristics
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The Employment Interview

• A haphazard conversation between two or more
  individuals with varying degrees of job
  relatedness.
• Minimally specified content
• Unsystematic execution and evaluation

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The Structured Interview
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What is a Structured Interview?

• A deliberate application of systematic and
  predetermined rules for observation and
  evaluation applied in the same way for all
  applicants for a particular position (Motowidlo
  et al., 1992, p. 571)
• Any enhancement of the interview that is
  intended to increase psychometric properties by
  increasing standardization or otherwise assisting
  the interviewer in determining what questions to
  ask or how to evaluate responses (Campion et
  al., 1997, p. 656)

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Elements of Structure (Campion et al., 1997)

• Based on job analysis
• Standard questioning
• Limited prompting
• Control for ancillary information
• Limited questioning
• Systematic rating
• Anchored rating scales
• Multiple interviewers conduct interviews
• Detailed notes

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Structured Interviewing Process

• Structured Interviewing is a process that
  involves three phases
• Development
• Administration
• Evaluation

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Development

• Job Analysis
• Examine critical incidents through interviews and
  surveys
• Include input from SMEs managers, supervisors,
  job incumbents
• Group incidents into dimensions and develop a
  pool of questions
• Question Type
• Use focused questions that are job relevant
• Future-oriented hypothetical situations
• Past-oriented relevant past behaviors
• Background experience, education,
  qualifications
• Job Knowledge descriptions or demonstrations of
  knowledge
• Avoid ambiguity or questions that focus on poorly
  defined traits with uncertain links to
  performance such as opinions, attitudes, goals,
  aspirations, self-descriptions, self-evaluations
• Training
• Train interviewers on administration and
  evaluation processes to promote consistency and
  efficiency

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Administration

• Standard questioning Consistent application
  across candidates (same questions, order,
  setting, time)
• Limited prompting Controlling for leading
  questions and limiting follow-up helps to
  maintain consistency
• Controls for ancillary information prevents
  priming interviewer.
• Limited questioning Only allow candidates to ask
  clarification questions during interview. Reserve
  candidate questions for the end.
• Multiple interviewers conduct interviews
• Detailed notes record responses and any relevant
  information.

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Evaluation

• Anchored Scales Use behavioral anchors to guide
  raters
• Systematic Rating Responses are rated
  individually (not overall judgment)
• Mechanical Scoring Combine scores (clinical
  rating)

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Types of Structured Interviews

• Past-oriented (experience-based or behavioral)
• Tell me about the time when
• Future-oriented (situational/hypothetical)
• What would you do if
• Overall, there is no clear advantage of one
  over the other because no significant differences
  in reliability and validity have been found and
  both are highly correlated to tests of cognitive
  ability (Campion, 1994 Motowidlo, 1999)

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What is Examined?

• Interviews with higher levels of structure tend
  to measure areas typically considered to have
  high job relevance
• Job knowledge
• Interpersonal skills
• Organization fit
• Habitual behavior patterns

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Validity of Structured Interviews
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Impact on Validity

• Structure is a major moderator of interview
  validity (Brtek Motowidlo, 2002 Huffcutt
  Arthur, 1994 Motowidlo, 1999)
• Structured interviews can reach validity
  comparable to mental ability tests (Campion,
  1994 Huffcutt and Arthur, 1994)
• The constructs that are more frequently rated in
  structured interviews tend to be better
  predictors of job performance (Huffcutt et al.
  2001)

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Application of Structured Interviews
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Local HR Practitioners (recent survey)

• Structural Elements
• 56 - job analysis
• 65 - standard questions
• 45 - train interviewers
• Unstructured Interview Questions
• 60 - candidate self evaluations
• 78 - opinions and attitudes
• 76 - goals and aspirations

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Local HR Practitioners (recent survey)

• Question Format
• 87 - Past-behavior
• 69 - Situational
• Structured Questions
• 96 - Job Knowledge
• 85 - Education/Qualifications

(Woodward Randall, 2005)
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Why are they not being used???

• According to van der Zee et al. (2002),
  structured interviews are infrequently used for a
  variety of reasons
• Awareness and understanding of academic
  literature
• Need for autonomy
• Concerns over applicant reactions
• Time and expense

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Group Discussion