The article states that "subjective hiring practices have been described as a 'ready mechanism' for racial discrimination" (p. 901). Do you think the degree to which unstructured interviews discriminate might vary by the type of job we are talking about?
I guess I am thinking of a minority group member doing well on an interview and therefore exceeding low expectations. A similarly performing majority group member might be evaluated less positively (despite equivalent interview performance) because they did not exceed the interviewer's relatively higher expectations. So minority group members might have an easier time meeting the lower standards that come from lower level jobs. However, when interviewing for higher level jobs interviewers may switch to needing the applicant to exhibit mastery. Therefore, the minority applicant may need to have much higher interview performance than the majority group member to prove that they are not just a stereotypic group member.
After reading this article about the legal ramifications of interview methods, I got to thinking about how the interviewee feels after interviews. Could there be some issues (similar to cognitive testing) with racial minorities and the differential validity of interview questions? If a room full of white male executives/managers are doing the interviewing, I would expect racial minorities and women to perform worse in the interview than their white male counterparts.
I was not surprised to see that the objective – job related component was most related to litigation outcomes. We are trained to create selection systems that are job related and this should help with applicant and judge/jury reactions to the selection system. Why might this objective-job related aspect be more highly related to litigation outcomes than a standardized administration?
In relation to what Shane was saying regarding minorities performing better in structured interviews that are conducted by minorities or similar minority personnel...does trust have a factor in this performance of minority applicants in structured interviews? Such as, would minorities show to have a strong trust from the conductors because they are the same type of minority?
The researchers were pleased that the standards the judges are using are the same ones that I/O psychologists have been recommending. Can the profession claim this as a success?
This article presents compelling evidence for the use of structured interviews in the selection of employees as evidence of fair treatment in the event the fairness of the organization's hiring policies are challenged in court. Yet, organizations persist in using unstructured interviews and HR professionals tend to be uncomfortable with structured interviews, at least in part, because they are seen as reducing their ability to build rapport with applicants. Is it possible that the worry of losing the best applicants is a more proximal concern for those doing the hiring than is the risk of a legal challenge to their hiring practices?
The researchers used archival data in their analysis (i.e., summaries of past court cases). How do you think other methodologies would have influenced their results?
The article states that "subjective hiring
ReplyDeletepractices have been described as a 'ready mechanism' for racial discrimination" (p. 901). Do you think the degree to which unstructured interviews discriminate might vary by the type of job we are talking about?
I guess I am thinking of a minority group member doing well on an interview and therefore exceeding low expectations. A similarly performing majority group member might be evaluated less positively (despite equivalent interview performance) because they did not exceed the interviewer's relatively higher expectations. So minority group members might have an easier time meeting the lower standards that come from lower level jobs.
However, when interviewing for higher level jobs interviewers may switch to needing the applicant to exhibit mastery. Therefore, the minority applicant may need to have much higher interview performance than the majority group member to prove that they are not just a stereotypic group member.
After reading this article about the legal ramifications of interview methods, I got to thinking about how the interviewee feels after interviews. Could there be some issues (similar to cognitive testing) with racial minorities and the differential validity of interview questions? If a room full of white male executives/managers are doing the interviewing, I would expect racial minorities and women to perform worse in the interview than their white male counterparts.
ReplyDeleteI was not surprised to see that the objective – job related component was most related to litigation outcomes. We are trained to create selection systems that are job related and this should help with applicant and judge/jury reactions to the selection system. Why might this objective-job related aspect be more highly related to litigation outcomes than a standardized administration?
ReplyDeleteIn relation to what Shane was saying regarding minorities performing better in structured interviews that are conducted by minorities or similar minority personnel...does trust have a factor in this performance of minority applicants in structured interviews? Such as, would minorities show to have a strong trust from the conductors because they are the same type of minority?
ReplyDeleteThe researchers were pleased that the standards the judges are using are the same ones that I/O psychologists have been recommending. Can the profession claim this as a success?
ReplyDeleteThis article presents compelling evidence for the use of structured interviews in the selection of employees as evidence of fair treatment in the event the fairness of the organization's hiring policies are challenged in court. Yet, organizations persist in using unstructured interviews and HR professionals tend to be uncomfortable with structured interviews, at least in part, because they are seen as reducing their ability to build rapport with applicants. Is it possible that the worry of losing the best applicants is a more proximal concern for those doing the hiring than is the risk of a legal challenge to their hiring practices?
ReplyDeleteThe researchers used archival data in their analysis (i.e., summaries of past court cases). How do you think other methodologies would have influenced their results?
ReplyDelete