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Interview Mistakes
The annual CareerBuilder.com survey of the most outrageous interview > mistakes was recently released, and while the candidate names were mercifully omitted in order to protect the unemployable, their actions do live on in HR infamy. According to the survey, one candidate saw his chances go down the tubes after flushing the toilet during a phone < interview >. Another thoughtless candidate told an interviewer that he wouldn't be able to stay with the job long because he thought he might get an inheritance if his uncle died -- and his uncle (much like the eventual prospect of him getting hired) wasn't "looking too good." Rosemary Haefner, vice president of HR for CareerBuilder.com, says interviews are a great opportunity to "give employers a window into what it's really like to work with a candidate -- how they react under pressure, what motivates them and how they interact with others." But Wendell Williams, the managing director of ScientificSelection.com, a diagnostic and testing firm based in Atlanta, says candidates aren't the only ones who can screw up interviews. In his view, HR practitioners are not really stepping up to the plate and embracing the science and technology of the last 40 years. They're still generally doggedly holding on to the belief that the < interview > is predictive and that they are "supremely good judges" of whether people are skilled. "An < interview > [should not be] a 'get to know you' session," he says. "[It actually should be] a series of questions [through which] the interviewer gets answers and weighs them against a standard, usually a personal one they have set for themselves. And in the vast majority of cases, the standard < interview > has more to do with an HR manager wanting to get to know the candidate, which is entirely different from getting to know whether the candidate has the skills to do the job." He says the "everyday < interview >" produces results that are really no better than chance. "They do serve one useful purpose: screening out blatantly unqualified people, but it has virtually no predictability at all," says Williams. He says a solid < interview > must consist of job analysis, behaviorally based < interview questions and a standardized scoring sheet, adding that if HR doesn't start adding value to the hiring process, then "top executives have absolutely no reason to keep them around. They're just reducing [hiring] to a commodity that anyone can do." And when it's time to make cuts, HR is "going to be at the top of the list." Anyone else hear a flushing sound?
Michael O'Brien can be e-mailed at mobrien@lrp.com.
May 16, 2008 Copyright 2008© LRP Publications |
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