The “Halo effect”
The Halo effect is sarcastically used to represent good attributes, while the Horns effect represents the bad or negative attributes. Same candidates for an interview would make a string impression and a smart but presentable appearance and on the interviewers as soon as they appear for an interview. For example, an applicant applies for an M&S vacancy, arrives at that branch or the interview and would therefore be well-dressed and attractive, have a firm handshake and a very confident manner. Interviewers have an initial good impression of a candidate which has two effects.
1. The good impression tends to positive t on the interpretation of everything else that happens in the interview
2. The interviewers will seek more positive information to confirm their initial judgement.this is known as the halo effect, but it can also happen with within initial negative impression. This is the bad side of the effect and is called the horns effect. This can be detected when interviewers start to seek negative information to confirm their first impressions.
Making snap decisions
At times the interviewer would make up his or hers min about the candidate and later would not change their assessment of that person’s suitability. In terms of the perceptual process this means that interviewers are responding too quickly and not taking the opportunity to elicit a wide-range of information.
Stereotyping
To become stereo typed means having the tendency to think , or act in rigid, repetitive, and often meaningless patterns.sometinemes stereotypical images of people influencing peoples decisions is probably the most dangerous of the perceptual errors, and is very often the link to racial and sex discrimination. It is one of the reasons that can stop M&S from achieving its aims and objectives due to numerous reasons. Stereotyping occurs when a person is primarily identified with some group that he or she belongs to and then is assumed to have or possess a range of characteristics that are common to all members of that group. Racial stereotypes are particularly bad and can cause a lot of serious damage. Some examples of stereotypes can lead to the rejection of staff for various reasons for example.
- Fat and thin people in M&S
- The color and race of a person
- The religious aspects of a person
- The way that people are presenting themselves for example people not looking decent and tidy or unfashionable dress
- Young people, particularly boys or young men, who are more likely to be classified as irresponsible in the workplace.
- Dislike of regional accent
- Peoples physique such as being too short or too tall
- Facial futures
Making assumptions
The halo effet, making snap decisions and stereotyping are all assumptions, but can be a more generalized fault. There are other situations where interviewers are willing to impose their own personal view of how they would act in particular circumstance, determine how the interviewee would act. Whatever assumptions are being made, these may be opinions made by the interviewer that could lead to serious consequences for M&S involving the bad relationship problems between the employee and the employer.
Gathering insufficient or irrelevant information
Specific perceptual errors could be attributed to gathering insufficient for irrelevant information. M&S interviewers obviously need to be aware of this general fault and make sure that they use proper techniques deal with it. They would be wasting valuable time compiling and using information that is not needed or relevant to their target.
Bad experiences and poor levels of interviewer’s skill
Interviewing is sometimes done in a poorly thought out and badly structured manner which gives the M&S a bad image. Inadequate preparation is the leading cause of poor interviews. Many interviewers, including experienced interviewers, have the misconception that when interviewing and assessing an applicant that technical competence equates to performance level. Many work from the perception that the presence of good job skills, knowledge, and work history equals top performance.
Assessing technical skill and knowledge is important, but it is only one factor. Skills are enablers and are not motivators and they do not guarantee any specific level of performance. In fact, the best job performer may not be the applicant who possesses the perfect skill set. It may be a more effective strategy to select a highly motivated candidate, with marginal technical skills, and train them, than a marginally motivated candidate with great technical skills.
High achievers share certain similarities that are lacking in those they outperform. Most of these common traits cannot be taught, trained or added to those who lack them. It becomes imperative that these traits are accurately assessed during the interview to guarantee that the best employees are hired. However above all this interviewers can make any of these blunders:
- Lack of good planning and poorly structuring and thought
- Not looking into every aspect of the candidate thoroughly in more depth enough
- Failing to listen to the candidate or to his or hers requests properly
- Inconsistency.
- Improper control or preparation
- Poor attitude and presentation in submissive and required information
The importance of interviews (The advantages of the interview)
Planning the interview
- The objective here will be to explore in detail and in depth some of the points raised in the application forms which the interviewer would consider to be of importance.
- Decide if the vacancy requires just one interviewer or two or even a panel of four or five. There are however, advantages and disadvantages to either approach.
One to one interviews put candidates at ease so that they talk more naturally. The problem is that:
- A single interviewer lacks the range and depth of knowledge of a panel of experts.
- A single interviewer is more likely to suffer from bias and can be highly prejudiced
- An interviewer is more likely to suffer from:
- mirror imaging-favouring candidates who are like them
- “halo effect” favouring candidates who have particularly attractive characteristics even if those characteristics have little bearing on the job applied for
- “horns” effects- the opposite of Halo effects
If there is more than one interviewer, the panel should ensure that there is planning meeting beforehand to decide how the questioning will be shared out. It will be very bad to an interviewee if the interviewers interrupt or contradict each other or repeat questions.
After the interview
After the interview all candidates and carrying out whatever tests may be necessary, the final stage is to select one or more of them. Interview panels often find it very hard to choose between the final and three applicants. Although applicants need to know the outcome within a few days there should be a thorough analysis of all information that has been collected on each of them. The key points to all this would include:
- attainments
- experience
- disposition
- personal circumstances
- reference letters
- results letters
- results from any essential tests
- comments from the interviewers
The job and person specification make it a lot easier to do the final selection. From these documents, a list of selection criteria would be important for the M&S job. It is important for the image of M&S to be polite and constructive when telling unsuccessful applicants that hey have failed to get the job. They may be suitable for different vacancies later on, and a polite, helpful letter may encourage them to apply for such positions.
The successful applicant should be notified first of all. This may b because they may be searching for other jobs, and because of serious competition, it will be up to M&S to inform the successful candidate because there is a chance that other retailers would do too. it would be wise for M&S to wait a day or two before notifying the best of the unsuccessful candidates just in case the successful ones does turn down the offer.
The use of tests used to selects appropriate candidates
It is increasingly common for employers to expect job applicants to carry out tests to give a better picture of their ability to do the job applied for. These are usually referred to as aptitude tests. They are appropriate for manual work where there is some skill involved and also in office work where applicants might be required to take a short typing or word processing test. For professional jobs, some tests are less needed because it is thought that the candidate qualifications, references and experience are good enough evidence.
Psychometric testing
Psychometric tests asses the intelligence and personality of the applicants. They are much more sophisticated than aptitude tests and the employer must have well-trained staff to analyst the tests properly. Such tests are particularly valuable when assessing intelligence, interest in the job applied for, motivation and personality. The producers of such tests have stated that they are accurate and completely unbiased. They are supposed to be particularly good at assessment of personality. For example, they can show if a candidate would work well in a team or would be more effective working alone. The following of theses tests are of the following:
- performance tests
- knowledge tests
- aptitude tests
- intelligence tests
- personality tests
Assessment centers tests
Job applications are subjected to a wide range of assessments over a whole day or two. They are required to participate in group exercises, psychometric tests, aptitude tests and traditional interviews. By using a mixture of assessment this process is claimed to produce more accurate result. the applicants are given longer to prove themselves and there fore become more relaxed and more nataul.however recent development now mean that these assessment centre exercises can be videoed and then sent to a team of independent experts to be properly analysed.this insures that the candidates have their performance assessed objectively.
