5.10 Interview Bias

Interviewing, like the use of resumes, has been a staple of employee selection for many years. Human resource managers and hiring managers appreciate the first-hand contact with the candidate that the interviews provide. Compared to other selection tools available to companies, interviewing is relatively expensive. The time of the interviewer is the major factor for this cost, thus, in the sequencing of the process, interviews are often placed towards the end of the selection process.

One major downside of interviews is that they can be very subjective and fraught with biases, conscious and unconscious. For example, it is common to have different interviewers come up with diverging assessments of a candidate. All this to say that the interview can potentially be problematic. However, scientific advances in HRM have provided some solutions to help make the interview a reliable and valid selection tool.  These advances lie in the use of interviewer training and structuring of the interview. We discuss these two solutions in this section.

Interviewer Training

Unconscious biases and subjectivity tend to drastically reduce the usefulness of the interview. One effective way to counter this is to train those conducting the interviews. Research has shown that interviewer training is a very effective way to reduce biases (Posthuma et al., 2002). Here is a short video from the Royal Society that explains how they seek to reduce biases in their selection process.

The interesting aspect of unconscious biases is that they are greatly reduced by simply raising awareness of their existence. Thus, knowing that they exist and what form they take, helps eliminate them. Here is a list of some common biases that can cloud an interviewer’s judgment.

1. Confirmation Bias: This is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information that confirms or supports one’s personal beliefs or values. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. For example, an interviewer who meets an extremely well-dressed candidate may be biased towards empirical data that supports one’s belief that this candidate is meticulous, ignoring the remainder of the data that is not supportive. This is a great video that demonstrates the strength of confirmation bias; it shows how we are deeply conditioned to look for information that confirms what we know versus seeking information that actually tests our beliefs, creating a very narrow mindset.

Example of Confirmation Bias: An applicant applying for an Art Director may be viewed as more artistic because they are left-handed because  it is believed that left-handed people are more creative.

2. Anchoring Bias: A tendency to depend too heavily on an initial piece of information offered (considered to be the “anchor”) to make subsequent judgments during decision making – it becomes the primary reference point for judgments. Once the value of this anchor is set, all future negotiations, arguments, estimates, etc. are considered in relation to the anchor. Information that aligns with the anchor tends to be assimilated toward it, while information that is more dissonant gets discarded. For example, research has shown that we form opinions about others very quickly, in just a few seconds (Willis & Todorov, 2006), partly because of the effect of anchoring.

Example of Anchoring Bias: An interviewer reads a group of resumes and the education level requirement is a college diploma.  The first resume indicates the person has a Masters Degree. This may lead to the interviewer comparing the rest of the resumes to the first one with the Masters degree, even though that is not the requirements.

3. Stereotyping: This is forming an opinion about how people of a given race, gender, religion, or other characteristics will think, act or respond or whether the interviewee is animated or reserved. For example, a women with children will miss a lot of work; a veteran won’t be able to adjust to working in an office; a male candidate will make a more assertive leader than a female candidate.

Example of Stereotyping: An interviewer who thinks/says, “I prefer women to work in our make-up department.”

4. Halo Effect: The halo effect occurs when a positive characteristic or strong point, held by the interviewer as a positive, and demonstrated by the candidate influences the entire interview. For instance, a candidate has a degree from a prestigious University so you think he or she must be highly competent and is therefore looked upon favourably. The opposite of this is known as the pitchfork effect, when one negative characteristic or point overshadows the interview. For example, a candidate answers the first two questions of the interview poorly which leads you to believe he or she is not qualified for the job.

Example of Halo Effect: An applicant who is dressed in a suit and tie is considered a better applicant that a person who is dressed in a sports shirt and trousers.

5. Leading Questions: Leading questions by the interviewer means they are seeking a desired outcome.  The interview may frame questions in a certain way to elicit answers that may be their own preconceived notions.  It implies there is a correct answer. For the interviewee they can be challenging to answer, as the interviewee may not know whether to answer yes or no; or whether they ought to agree or disagree with the interviewee. This would be considered a bias and could lead to poor decision making on the interviewer’s part.

Example of Leading Question: “Our company is the best IT company in Canada, isn’t it?”

6. Interviewer Domination: When the interviewer spends more time talking and asking questions of the applicant.  The interviewer talks about their job, the company or the actual job the applicant is applying for at the company.  Or, they may carry on conversations of a personal and social nature. The interviewer dominates the interview.

Example of Interview Domination: “My job here at the company is one of the most important jobs because…..(and talks about their job for 10 minutes.)

7. Similar-to-me Bias: The interviewer believes the candidate is similar to them in some way i.e. education, characteristics, experience; and the applicant is more favourable compared to other applicants who the interview does not have common ground.

Example of Similar-to-me Bias: “I see you have 10 years experience working specifically with GIA software, and graduated from the Western University.  I have the same experience with GIA software, and also graduated from Western.”

“Interviewing” from Human Resources Management – 2nd Ontario Edition by Elizabeth Cameron is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.