The Structured Interview – Part 3

What are the most frequent biases during an interview?

This is the last article of a three-part series that provides an overview of the structured interview. This article will discuss how the structured interview helps prevent the various types of bias that may occur during interviews.
Many people assume that they’re great at reading people. Whether it’s true or not, we’re all human and we’re all fallible. That’s why it’s important to be aware of our bias tendencies when using interviews to select candidate’s for our organizations.
Below we’ve rounded up some of the main culprits of interviewer bias. Take a look and familiarize yourself with these. Being aware of a potential bias is the first step to mitigation. Let us know if you have any questions and/or feel free to share the strategies you use to deal with interviewer bias.
Stereotyping:

• Forming an opinion about how people of a given gender, religion, race, appearance, or other characteristic think, act, respond, or would perform the job without any evidence that this is the case.

First impressions:

• An interviewer might make a snap judgments about someone based on their first positive or negative impression. For example, letting the fact that the candidate arrived late or has a heavy accent take precedence over the applicant’s knowledge, skills, or abilities.

Negative emphasis:

• This involves rejection of a candidate based on a small amount of negative information a common occurrence. Research indicates that interviewers give unfavorable information about twice the weight of favorable information.

Halo/horn effect:

• The “halo” effect occurs when an interviewer allows one strong point about the candidate to overshadow or have an effect on everything else. For instance, knowing someone went to a particular university might be looked upon favorably. Everything the applicant says during the interview is seen in this light. The “horn” effect is just the opposite allowing one weak point to influence everything else.

Nonverbal bias:

• Undue emphasis might be placed on nonverbal cues that have nothing to do with the job, such as loudness or softness of voice, or the type of handshake given.

Contrast effect:

• Strong(er) candidates who interview after weak(er) ones may appear more qualified than they are because of the contrast between the two. Note taking during the interview and a reasonable period of time between interviews may alleviate this. (http://www.vcsu.edu/cmsfiles/76/bias_lh5.pdf)

Have questions about interviewer bias? Call, e-mail or tweet, we’d love to hear from you!