For those of you who know me well, you know that I am a total nerd when it comes to interviewing. I read everything I can get my hands on about this particular topic. As an expert in the interview process for hiring employees, I was particularly struck by this Fast Company article called, “What if we killed the job interview?”
According to the author, organizations make better hiring decisions when they use artificial intelligence (AI) based tools as opposed to actual interviews, so he advocates rather strongly that we ditch interviews altogether. His main point is that hiring managers and recruiters “overestimate their ability ‘to interview and evaluate a potential candidates’ suitability for the job.’ ” In other words, their ego gets the better of them.
I agree with him completely that the ego can play a detrimental role when interviewing for new hires. In 1994, Martin Yate wrote in his book, Hiring The Best, “(Interviewing) is something that we feel we are expected to know, or that comes with experience. Couple that feeling with the average ego, and you get ‘It’s easy enough to interview; I know a good one when I see one; it’s sort of a gut feeling’.” And yet, the numbers prove otherwise. 2/3 of all hires are found to be a mistake within the year.
But does that mean we should completely stop job interviews? Not in my opinion.
The author in the Fast Company article continues, “Interviews are more useful when they are totally structured and standardized.” Exactly. Yet why don’t we do this? Structured and standardized interviews provide better data. Most employers will tell you it is because, before now, no one has ever created a structured interview process that works. I have interviewed almost 20,000 candidates using a structured interview system that I needed to create myself and with great success. Intrigued? The whole system is spelled out in my book “Why Can’t I Hire Good People?” available on Amazon.
Killing the job interview is a terrible suggestion. Improving the structure of the hiring/ interview process makes way more sense.