There is also the problem of intentional deception which is just plain dishonesty. This dishonesty can take the partial and complete fabrication of facts such as educational qualifications, skills, employment history, salary and experience may be undertaken to match the candidate with the ideal employee. At the interview stage many candidates have to carry on going giving false information to sustain incorrect, supplied in a CV or application form. Weiss and Davis (1960) found out one fifth of candidates gave misleading replies. Bringing this in with my own experience I am currently applying for a placement with a firm for next year I have made several overestimates and exaggerations in my CV to try and get to at least the interview stage. I have not really made any facts completely up but have exaggerated some former employment positions i.e. from being the informal team leader of a box make up team at Birdseye to the formal team leader with a higher wage due to my level of responsibility. Should I be invited to the interview I would have to carry on with these exaggerations as I wouldn’t like to own up to the interviewer as I wouldn’t like to be seen as dishonest. I only exaggerate a lot of candidates completely make facts up to try and impress the interviewer.
The other main element of dishonesty by the candidate is the concealment of unfavourable information. Most prefer to omit or minimise perceived negative features which may or may not be job related. This information could be things like criminal records or health issues. They often bring this out at the interview stage as they believe the information is highly confidential and best disclose the information in person because the candidate thinks his positive impressions during the interview would counteract the negative things. This concealment of information is a problem for interviewers as if they only find this out at the interview stage some employers see this as a complete waste of time and money as they do not want a criminal or somebody with poor health working for them.
I have discussed some drawbacks of interviews for the employer but the problem of impression management could be the hardest to detect. There are two forms this can take however in interviews it is the pro active techniques that are the most popular, this is the candidate pro-actively constructs a positive image. The self promotion undertaken by the candidate occurs through deliberate misrepresentation of job qualifications and positive self descriptions. Declarations of being confident, competent, hardworking and energetic were the qualities most frequently mentioned in Stevens and Kristof’s (1995) research into real life interviews. Candidates carry out impression management to demonstrate knowledge, expertise, skills and abilities that fit the organisation. During my interviews I try to use pro active impression management as I try to over emphasise my team skills not only how easily I work within a team but also acting as leader. When talking about this I mention my position as team leader in formal employment and how I captained numerous sports teams.
Another method of impression management is that of defensive reactive strategies which aim to minimise the negative attributions resulting from ones behaviour. This method however is rarely used in interviews but when it occurs it’s a series of excuses for ones actions e.g. they were fired because of downsizing. Impression management can interfere with the interviewer’s evaluation and decision making process so reduces the validity of the interview. Many employers have discovered they have took on the wrong candidate and have had to get rid of them as they’d made the mistake of taking them on due to their impression management which has blinded the interviewer.
After looking at the problems of interviewers for the employers I will now look at the drawbacks from a candidate or interviewee point of view. Deception by the interviewers can cause a problem for the candidate with incorrect or incomplete information given to them during the interview. This can be unintentional if the interviewer knows very little about the job, however a majority of the time the interviewer knows the job itself is hard work and boring and that the company may not fill it so they paint the job in glowing colours to trick candidates in to wanting the position. False expectations are often given to the candidate about training and career development opportunities that are either completely made up or exaggerated. The problem for the candidate is often they have no idea if the interviewer is telling the truth. Often the candidate if he is successful can tell if he has been lied to about training in the first few weeks, but for the successful candidate it could take a matter of years to find out if the career development opportunities are there and this is why it is such a problem for interviewees. Tenopyr and Oeltjen (1982) concluded that interviewers were often not credible sources of information. In my personal experience I have been tricked by the employer as when I took a pot washing job 3 months before my 18th birthday I was guaranteed by my birthday I would be trained and working in the bar. At the time I believed the employer and took the job on however two months had passed since my birthday and I was still in the kitchen this is when I knew it was time to leave. This example shows just how easy it is to believe the employer and many candidates have made and will keep on making my mistake.
The biggest problem for the candidate is usually the interviewer’s bias and his or her own ideas of the perfect candidate. This perfect candidate typically compromises of four key components the candidates firstly pedigree which refers to being educated at a good school, university or institution, next they look at productivity which could be proven admin skill or evidence of good line management. Thirdly there is prospects which is the feeling the person is going places and lastly there is personal skills which include leadership potential and ability to work with others. The interviewer makes up a specific ideal of all these things and this is the perfect candidate they are looking for although sometimes this may not even exist. This is one idea of the perfect applicant the other may entail their application form is tidy; the candidate answers all questions, seems assured and confident, is physically attractive, is similar to the interviewer and dresses appropriately. These are all things the interviewer wants his candidates to be like a very strong candidate with past experience can turn up in the wrong clothes and may not get offered the job purely because he wore smart casual clothes instead of a suit. In my pursuit of finding a placement for next year I have suffered a lot from employer bias I have wanted to do a marketing placement and having completed tests and a strong interview at Nissan I was sent a letter back saying I was a strong candidate but I was not undertaking a specific marketing course and may not have the required skills. I strongly disagreed with the companies claims but if they have got a pre fabricated idea of the perfect candidate I cannot change that.
Another problem of bias during actual interviews is called the Horn or Halo effect this is were the interviewer decides that the applicant may be successful or unsuccessful on the basis of one particular really good or bad thing that came up during the interview. Once they have come to this assumption the rest of the interview is irrelevant as they have already made their decision. An example could be the employer found out the candidate may have no relevant experience in the particular field he or she plans to undertake, no matter how hard the candidate is prepared to work or that he has outstanding qualifications it doesn’t matter as the interviewer has made his decision.
The candidate can also not do as well as they had hoped for because of mistakes by the interviewer which happens all of the time I will talk about just a few standard traps that the interviewer carries out. One of the biggest mistakes the interviewer can undertake is by failing to notice candidate’s difficulties like hearing problems or failure to understand your accent. If the interviewer does not help address these difficulties it will make the candidate suffer more anxiety and under perform. Another big problem for the candidate is if the interviewer talks too much and does not let the candidate any real time or space to think about or even answer the question. Often when there is a pause it is the candidate thinking of an answer he doesn’t need the interviewer jumping in disrupting his concentration.
Anxiety can also be a big problem for some candidates, up to a point it sharpens their reflexes but past the point it can detract from performance. The main symptoms of anxiety are breathlessness, sweating, shakiness or wanting to vomit or urinate. If these problems of anxiety are not overcome it can seriously harm the candidate’s chances of success as their behaviour may distract the interviewer or distract themselves as they are so paranoid about their own anxiety. When I was younger I used to suffer from anxiety which made my hands sweat but with increased experience and confidence this has disappeared and do not worry before or during interviews anymore.
After looking at the both the drawbacks for the interviewer or company and for the candidate it is clear that many of the drawbacks are similar. For the candidate and the interviewer it is clear that deception is a big problem both intentional plain dishonesty and unintentional deception. The main problems for the company and interviewer was the time and money spent on interviews and the big problem of Impression Management by the candidate. The candidate also recognises problems from interviews with the biggest ones being Bias by the interviewer who had an ideal candidate already in their head, the Horn and Halo effect was also seen as a bad effect in interviews as was anxiety. I have had a number of selection interviews over the years and tried to illustrate my experiences linked up with the problems I have discussed during the essay, I identified problems I had faced and problems I had created for the interviewer due to deception and impression management. I have never really interviewed anybody properly only in a group panel so it would be unfair for me to comment so just used my experiences of being interviewed. What is important to remember about interviews is although they have many flaws they are no worse than other selection methods like personality and psychometric tests and are probably more reliable. The problems I have discussed during the essay will never be completely eliminated however with better training and experience the problems will gradually diminish.
Bibliography
Professional issues in Selection and Assessment Mike Smith and Valerie Sutherford, 1993 ,Volume 1 John Wiley and Sons
Problems of Practice – Interviewing ,Glynis M Breakwell, 1990 ,1st Edition BPS Books
Deception in Selection ,Liz Walley and Mike Smith, 1998, 1st Edition Wiley and Sons
Functional Job Analysis Sidney, A.Fine Steven F Cronshaw ,1999, 1st Edition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associate Publishers
Human Resource Management –a Contemporary Approach, Ian Beardwell Len Holden,1998 ,3rd Edition ,Prentice Hall
Simon Cutsforth N11204387