The (Dismal) Effectiveness of the Old-Fashioned Interview

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I refer to it as the old-fashioned interview because it is about as useful as were the old fashioned typewriters compared to today’s computers. Never mind the fact that it is a dismal predictor of future success on the job, it is still in use. The good news is that there are alternatives, although they are not yet widely used.

The Worst Predictors

 

Unstructured interviews

In general, unstructured interviews, those in which the interviewer is left to their own accord to ask whatever questions come to mind, can explain only about 14 percent of an employee’s future performance.  Yet, the interviews taking place today could largely be categorized as unstructured interviews.  Rarely is the interviewer prepared in advance for the types of questions they will ask or are the consistent across multiple candidates for the same position.

Reference Checks

Refence checks fair a little worse and can only explain approximately 7% of on the job performance.  Yet, how many of us still conduct reference checks only to be told that they employee was wonderful, never missed a day of work and that they would be re-hired.  Only a few times have I heard a voice on the other end of the line tell me something negative about an applicant. In those cases, I always wonder what that candidates less favorable reviewers would say about them if these are the best they could come up with.

Years of Work Experience

By far, the least predictive of success, coming in at explaining only 3% of performance is our concern with the numbers of years of experience an applicant has.  We somehow make the leap that someone who has been in an occupation for 15 years is better and worth more than someone who has been in the same occupation for only 5 years.  That may be true if the more senior applicant has shown significant career progression, but the inverse may actually be true if both applicants have been in the same job and neither have experienced career progression.

 

The Best Predictors

 

The Work Sample

While not all jobs easily lend themselves to work sample test, these are, not surprisingly, the best predictors of future success coming in at 29%.  While management jobs are notoriously difficult to give a work sample test to, there are many types of positions including finance, accounting, call centers that readily lend themselves to these types of tests.

Cognitive Tests

While there is some reluctance to give what people think of as IQ tests to candidates, these cognitive tests are the second-best predictor of performance coming in at 26%.  They actually don’t measure IQ as much as they measure the thought process that the candidate uses, their ability to solve issues and how quickly they can think and process information.  They are predictive because general cognitive ability includes the capacity to learn and the combination of raw intelligence and learning ability will make most people successful in most jobs.

Structured Interviews

In a tie with the Cognitive tests are structured interviews at 26%.  These structured interviews can be either behavioral where the candidate is asked to describe a past achievement in a certain area or situational where the candidate is given a hypothetical, but related scenario and asked how they would respond.

Given the above data, think about how you might re-structure your interviewing processes to give your company the best chance of hiring candidates that will experience success on the job.

 

The Gig Economy

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The Gig economy references a trend towards on demand hiring, an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. The trend toward a gig economy has begun. A study by Intuit predicted that by 2020, 40 percent, of American workers would be independent contractors and MBO Partners predicts that by 2027 over 60% of the US workforce will be a part of the gig economy, which is up from 30% today.  There are many implications this has for HR organizations.

 

Communication

Developing a communication strategy early on in the process is the key to success.  If your company is used to having everyone in one place, how will you communicate to multiple remote employees?  How will you brand differently to create the unification that exists in more traditional workforces.  Are your communication systems as on- demand as your workforce is?

 

Software support

Few software packages are adequately focusing on managing a large temporary workforce.  Anil Dharni, CEO of Sense, a staffing platform, told HR Dive that initiatives are just beginning to target gig workers for improved methods of communication, for example. He said although gig workers expand in number each year, they had not been the focus of HR technologies. He said he expects that to change as the contingent workforce continues to grow. 

 

Classifications

One of the biggest risk related to the gig economy is ensuring that workers are properly classified as employees or contractors. Penalties can be stiff for noncompliance or inaccuracies. HR managers should make sure they understand whether the on-demand worker should be an employee or can be a contractor and whether, if the former, he or she is exempt or non-exempt. That all comes down to the nature of the work, the level of direction and control required and what is provided from the company to the worker in order to perform the work.

 

Pay

Outsourcing to temp agencies is expensive and you can save upwards of 25-30% by finding your own on-demand workers and simply payroll servicing them or, alternatively, bringing them onto your payroll system in a classification as a temporary worker.  Depending on the length of the assignment, it may be easier to payroll service someone who is only with you for a short period of time.

 

Succession Planning

To make the most of this fast, on-demand workforce, businesses should have a clear strategic direction, a compelling and well integrated corporate culture, and a sense of leadership continuity to truly become, and remain, a successful live business enterprise supported by an on-demand workforce.  Succession planning rules may apply differently to the on-demand workforce. Beyond the mere access to available talent, succession planning for on-demand workers should provide measures to ensure cross-functional collaboration, quick ramp-up times, and cultural integration. This approach increases employee engagement and effectively leverages a constant flow of workforce insights coming from a myriad of old and new resources.

There are a myriad of challenges for integrating an on-demand workforce into your current processes, but a combination of the more traditional 9 to 5 workforce with an on demand contingency can reap the best of both worlds.