structured and unstructured selection interviews

STRUCTURED AND UNSTRUCTURED SELECTION INTERVIEWS: BEYOND THE JOB-FIT MODEL

Robert L. Dipboye

ABSTRAO Unstructured, intuitive processes still appear to dominate HRM practices, despite the evidence in favor of more structured, rational approaches. The present paper is concerned with one example of this: the continued dominance of unstructured interviews in employee selection. Through structuring interview procedures, biases in information gathering, judgment, and decision making can be reduced and the reliability and validity of interviewer judgments improved. Despite the empirical support for the use of a structured interview process, organizations continue to rely primarily on unstructured interviews. The present paper proposes that the dominance of unstructured interviews can be attributed to the interviewer's attempts to achieve personal satisfaction, attain a good fit of employees to the job context, acquire and maintain power, make just decisions, and communicate the values of the organization. It is also suggested that a broader perspective is needed in the research and theory on employee selection that encompasses other functions of the selection process in addition to hiring the best person for the job. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Volume 12, pages 79-123. Copyright© 1994 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

ISBN: 1-55938-733-5

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INTRODUOION Achieving a good fit between people and their jobs is a primary objective of human resources management (HRM). Recruitment, training, performance appraisal, and selection are the chief strategies, and in each case, a structured process has been proposed to achieve an optimal person-job fit. The usual recommendation is to start with a formal job analysis to determine the knowledge, skills, and abilities required of incumbents and the criteria for measuring their performance. On the basis of this analysis, as well as a rational consideration of costs and benefits, techniques are chosen for implementation that are considered to be best suited for the situation. A formal evaluation follows, and those techniques that achieve the desired outcomes are retained while those that fail are modified or discarded. Although structuring HRM practices has been shown to have immense value to organizations (e.g., McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, & Maurer, in press), the irony is that so many organizations fail to use a structured process and instead rely on intuitive, highly subjective approaches. More attention needs to be given to understanding why some HRM methods that have been shown to be effective are largely ignored, while methods that have never been scientifically evaluated or that have been thoroughly discredited are enthusiastically embraced. In considering this issue, the present paper focuses on perhaps the most notable example of how HRM practice and the empirical research diverge: the ubiquitous use of unstructured interviews in employee staffing. This paper starts with a comparison of structured and unstructured approaches to selection and then shows how the typical unstructured interview is vulnerable to a variety of biases in information gathering, judgment, and decision making. Evidence that structured procedures can enhance reliability and validity is next considered, but as already mentioned, organizations have been reluctant to adqpt these procedures. The remainder of the paper examines the possible re11sons that unstructured interviews continue to be the dominant method qf selection, promotion, and placement, despite the evidence that favors struct\)red approaches. (In the interest of parsimony, I will refer to selection, even though the discussion applies to placement and promotion a~ well.) My central argument is that HRM needs to broaden its focus to take into account not only whether the best person is chosen for the job, but also whether other important functions are fulfilled, such as achieving a good person-job context fit, acquiring power, maintaining justice, socializing new hires, conveying the values of the organization, and satisfying the needs of those who implement the HRM procedures.

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UNSTRUCTURED AND STRUCTURED APPROACHES TO SELECTION The present discussion views the sequence of events involved in selection, placement, and promotion decisions as a process that involves several sources of information on applicants (e.g., applications, reference checks, tests), with the interview as a core component of this process (American Society of Personnel Administration, 1983; Blocklyn, 1988; Bureau of National Affairs, 1988; Shackleton & Newell, 1991). Indicative of the importance of the interview is that the information generated by other procedures often influences the final decision only after it has been filtered through interviewer judgments. Two general strategies in handling the interview can be distinguished and are outlined in Figure 1: the structured approach which is formal and research guided, and the unstructured approach which is informal and guided by intuition. The comparison in Figure I is not meant to imply that all selection, placement, and promotion activities fall into one of these two categories. Rather, these two approaches are presented as prototypes to aid in understanding, much as comparisons have been made by decision theorists between intuitive and rational judgment processes (e.g., Hammond, Hamm, Grassian, & Pearson, 1987).

The Unstructured Approach to Selection Most selection processes in organizations are probably semistructured in that they possess elements of both the structured and unstructured approaches, but I would argue that the typical interview more closely resembles the unstructured than the structured process in Figure I. Interviewers are guided by their personal, often idiosyncratic views of what is required in the job. The gathering of information and the subsequent judgment and choice of applicants are highly subjective and influenced by vague impressions of overall fit. Finally, the evaluations of how well interviewers have performed in choosing applicants is based on casual observations rather than systematic investigation. Although typical of the selection process, the research on interviews suggests that unstructured procedures are vulnerable to a variety of biases that can lower the quality of decisions. I now review this research, as well as recent evidence that structuring the process is a way to eliminate these biases and improve decision making.

General, Undifferentiated Theories of the Ideal Applicant

With a structured approach to selection, decisionmakers start with detailed information on the knowledge, abilities, and skills required in the

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FEATURES COMMON TO SELECTION PROCESS

STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

Formal job Analysis

Identifying KSAs

Standardized Search For Information

Diagnostic of KSAs

Quantitatively Evaluate Separate KSAs

Choice Based on Rational Consideration

-

Decide What Traits Are Required in the job

' ' '

-

Applicant's Traits and Qualifications

1-

For Information

judge Applicant on

1-

Categorize On

1-

and Intuitive Judgment

Trait Dimensions.

Decisions

Biased by Impressions

General Traits

Noncompensatory

Make Selection

f.-

Personal Beliefs of the Interviewer

Unstandardized

Gather Information on

f-

UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW

of General Fit

of Costs and Benefits

t Evaluate Interview

Empirical Validation

of judgments Against Job Criteria

figure 1.

f.-

Process on Perlormance In Selecting Applicants

1-

Subjective, Casual Observation of Hiree Performance

A summary of the major components involved in the structured and unstructured approaches to selection interviews.

job. Information is gathered and evaluated in reference to this profile of requirements. On the other hand, decisionmakers in the unstructured process (Figure I) rely on their beliefs about the attributes of the qualified applicant. Unlike the detailed information on knowledge, skills, and abilities that would come from a formal job analysis, these beliefs are more general and diffuse, and are often peculiar to the particular decisionmaker. The research on occupational stereotypes has shown that people hold strong beliefs about the attributes of individuals in occupations (Crowther & More, 1972; More & Suchner, 1976; Triandis, 1959a, 1959b; Westbrook & Molla, 1976). Moreover, the conceptions of the ideal applicant appear

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diffuse and undifferentiated (Hake! & Schuh, 1971; Shaw, 1972). Indeed, a study of over 5,000 interviewers revealed a "good applicant" profile (e.g., cooperative, trustworthy, dependable) that was common across diverse occupations and that bore a striking resemblance to the profile of a good boy scout (Hake! & Schuh, 1971). Experienced interviewers do not appear to differ markedly from inexperienced interviewers in their descriptions of either the ideal or typical applicant (Hake!, Hollmann, & Dunnette, 1970; Imada, Fletcher, & Dalessio, 1980; Marks & Webb, 1969; Paunonen & Jackson, 1987). I would hypothesize that the lack of information characteristic of unstructured procedures leads interviewers to categorize on the basis of these prior conceptions and, as a consequence, lowers the validity of their decisions. There are some caveats that should be mentioned in posing the above hypothesis. There is some evidence that beliefs about the personality traits of a typical incumbent (as opposed to an ideal incumbent) are reasonably accurate (Jackson, Peacock, & Holden, 1982). Also, experts generally have more complex, reliable, and accessible knowledge structures than nonexperts (Fiske & Kinder, 1981; Kozlowski & Kirsch, 1987; Lurigio & Carroll, 1985; Smither & Reilly, 1987); so it is possible that expert interviewers will not show as large a decline in validity as nonexpert interviewers. Despite these caveats, it seems unlikely that the conceptions held by an interviewer, even an experienced one, can match the accuracy and specificity of a well-