L03 Interviews

Few jobs are filled without an interview, whether by phone, Internet or in person. Staffing experts recommend that interviews be structured and consistent because it provides both legal and practical benefits for employers. On the legal side, it provides specific judgments about interview performance based on a consistent method. On the practical side, it benefits the employer with presumably better selections devoid of interviewer bias.

Most interviewers have received advice about not hiring themselves by indulging in the comfortable familiarity of like traits. Or avoiding inherent bias, which is an unconscious favoritism toward or prejudice against people of certain ethnicities or gender. Worse is overt bias, which is bias that is conscious and intentional.

Though judicial reviews of interviews in cases alleging discrimination are also unavoidably subjective, diverse committees, and identical questions with performance-based scoring can make the subjective part of the process more objective.

The goal of most applicants is to wow the interviewer or committee. The goal of the interviewer or committee is to determine if the applicant will be a good fit for the employer and able to perform the duties of the job. Free flowing, give-and-take conversation is tempting. Intuition controls. Many take those routes during interviews. When things work out and no one is unhappy, all is well. When someone contests the outcome, subjective processes are harder to defend. Keep in mind that a complaint about the process does not automatically convert to the unsuccessful applicant being the best candidate as their views are likely more subjective than those of anyone that contributed to the decision.

Most know that specific remarks about protected class characteristics during interviews are either kindly described as lapses in judgment or more aptly depicted as dumb. Stereotypes about women, gays, Blacks or Asians, for example, cannot be written off as being in jest. When remarks are quoted as if it were such, context will be lacking, and it won’t sound like something that should have been said.