Interviews don’t work. But don’t worry, I have the answer.
Posted by Mitch on 7th November 2013
The Washington Post recently published a blog that suggests there is no evidence that interviewing job applicants prompts better hiring decisions.
My own 143 years of experience in the recruitment industry (that’s dog years by the way) has brought me to a place where I find myself agreeing with this premise.
I’ve seen too many candidates who have almost totally matched the brief I’ve been working to, not get the job.
Sometimes I’ve even squirmed with embarrassment for the Line Manager when listening to their attempted rationale for hiring someone, when what they really wanted to say was “I’ve just got a hunch about this one”.
So what do we do about recruitment selection to make it fairer for everybody involved?
This is a tough one and I’m sure it’s a question that the Recruitment Futurologists (the planet’s true failed recruiters) will dissect to death over the coming months.
So, putting-on my borrowed recruitment futurology hat, I pondered this same question for what felt like a lifetime, but was in fact only 7½ minutes.
You put all of the shortlisted candidate’s names into a hat (or a big drum if it’s a big shortlist) and basically do a prize draw.
First name drawn gets the job, second name gets the job in case the other person turns it down and the 3rd name gets a Primark voucher for 25 quid.
You could turn it into a bit of an event. Get a few beers in, some nibbles and maybe Youtube it as the theme for a new employer branding video.
What difference would it make to British industry if companies selected candidates this way?
Would work performance really suffer some seismic shift downwards?
Think of all the management time that could be saved not having to interview people, not to mention the reduction in stress.
No doubt some Big Data nerd will come along soon and tell me that not interviewing anyone is actually going to become the future. No wait, that’s what the Futurologist guys do, right?
Seriously, run with the Tombola idea for a while.