Every recruiters want to hire the most appropriate person for a specific job. To achieve this goal, most of them use different tools like personality tests, questionnaires or job-interviews. If the different tests can be scientifically validated, they generally don’t have a strong level of predictability. Experienced recruiters know the weaknesses of this kind of tests and generally use the last option to make or confirm their choice. Job-interview is one of the most important phase in the hiring process and an attractive tool for recruiters. This exchange allows recruiters to develop some specific points and get many informations about the candidate. Thanks this tool, they have a global idea of the candidate and can anticipate his success in the organisation. But, is this method a safe one to hire the right person at the right place ?
We must admit that nothing can equal the advantages of this kind of interview and it will be hard to find an effective tool that can replace the human exchange in the hiring process. But there are many aspects that can bias the recruiter’s evaluation, even the most experimented ones. In this article, we chose to introduce you two of them. First, there is a famous cognitive bias identified by Asch in 1946 : the Halo effect. In his experience, Asch proved that when we first meet someone, we tend to generalize our first impression. This way, if we find a positive caracteristic in someone, our brain will be focused on the others positive aspects of this person and will ignore his negative personality traits. The opposite is also true, and if we find a negative caracteristic in someone, we will tend to notice more negative aspects of this person. Recruiters have to be conscious of this effect to make the right choice. They will have a better judgement if they take a distance with their first impressions instead of follow their intuition.
A second cognitive bias can appear during a job interview, it’s the Dunning-Krueger effect (Dunning and Krueger, 1999). Generally, in a job-interview situation, we use to think that an efficient candidate will have a strong self-confidence. In this way, we consider that this « expert » will have less difficulties to sell himself and talk about his skills than a less competent one. The Dunning-Krueger effect shows that it’s wrong : the more people are experts in a particular domain, the more they will doubt of their capacities and underestimate their level of expertise. By the way, people with a low level of expertise in a domain will tend to over-estimate their capacities. Because they only know the tip of the iceberg of knowledge, they can’t consider the domain in his entire complexity. The recruiter has to be careful and keep in mind that sometimes the one who talks is not the one who knows.
There are so many others biases that can influence the judgement’s recruiters during a job-interview. It’s part of their job to learn them, to seek how they might change their perception and to have a critical look on their own activity to limit their consequences.
Bibliographic References :
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/fr/articles/biais-dunning-kruger