Analysis: The move to get applicants to complete multiple interviews for jobs is another form of the conservative bias around hiring in many firms
The process of applying for jobs, especially jobs that involve any level of responsibility or reasonable pay, has become increasingly rigorous. It is not uncommon for applicants for managerial or technical jobs to go through many rounds of tests, assessments and interviews. Some of these are to assess qualifications and job-related skills and others to assess attitudes and cultural fit before a job offer is made.
You might excel in test after test and in interview after interview, only to find that the organisation decides to go in a different direction at some point. It often looks like businesses are having a hard time making up their minds about applicants, and the trend to use multiple rounds of assessment appears to be growing.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, what are the biggest job interview mistakes?
One of the reasons employers are taking so long in hiring is that they are increasingly likely to view full-time employees as liabilities rather than assets and new hires as a proposition that involves known costs but uncertain benefits. If you hire a new employee, you are liable for pay, benefits and the like, but you cannot be certain that the new employee will contribute to the organisation or fit the company culture.
As a result, many large employers are reluctant to hire new employees or even to replace employees who depart. Organisational mission statements often include phrases like "employees are our most valuable asset" or "we treat employees as family", but the cold, hard truth is that many managers and executives wish they could get along without employees.
At least part of the allure of AI is that it will soon replace many employees. This idea is largely based on naïve views of what AI can and cannot do; organisations that have relied on AI to replace important employee functions have sometimes come to regret this decision. For example, lawyers who use AI to write briefs for them have too often found that AI hallucinates, writing briefs that cite non-existent cases or laws. Replacing employees with AI may be feasible in the future, but it is not a good bet at this point.
From How Money Works, the plague of multi round interviews
Employers sometimes use internships or part-time positions to allow applicants to "audition for the job". A more cynical interpretation of this approach is that they get employees to work for nothing, or to work in jobs that do not provide benefits, saving millions in payroll. Even if you do not take the cynical view here, it seems clear that the desire to get applicants to complete lengthy auditions for their jobs is just another form of the conservative bias that haunts hiring in many organisations.
This conservative bias in hiring is partly a result of buck-passing. Almost everyone involved in the hiring process has an incentive to ask for one more assessment because they worry about being held accountable for bad hiring decisions.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Oliver Callan Show, should you use AI to write a CV?
A hiring decision can have one of three outcomes. The most likely is that the person hired will perform pretty much as expected, but it is also possible that this person will either turn out to be a star (representing a very good decision) or turn out to fail. Unfortunately, failure is usually spotted more quickly and more easily, and hiring managers often worry that the occasional failure will hurt them more than the occasional superstar hire will benefit them. From this perspective, it seems like it will never hurt to gather more information before making a hiring decision.
Employers who use multiple rounds of interviews to select candidates, or that start with internships or temporary assignments before making a genuine job offer often justify their approach as a way of reducing the risks involved in hiring. But what they ignore are the risks that lengthy and rigorous procedures for screening applicants can pose. Applicants often have negative reactions to drawn-out screening processes, and there is evidence that the best-qualified applicants will not put up with this sort of treatment and will find employment elsewhere. An organisation that is not careful could end up losing its best prospects by adopting a selection system that requires applicants to jump through so many hoops.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's The Business, Síofra Mulqueen reports on how to succeed in jobs interviews
Hiring is risky, but so is alienating prospective employees. Companies that use multiple rounds of interviews could likely cut these substantially without losing much information. One of the most reliable rules of assessment is that the amount of useful information you get from each succeeding round of tests or interviews is likely to be smaller than the amount provided by the initial assessments.
The temptation to gather more information is often strong, but managers and executives should take careful stock of the costs and benefits of multiple assessments. At a minimum, if an employee's first experience with you is an interminable and exasperating set of tests and interviews, it not likely he or she will start off with a positive impression of the business, and the long-term cost in terms of employee satisfaction, commitment, and motivation might be substantial. Think carefully before asking for just one more round of interviews.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
