Association Journals
Empirical study on employment interviews: Multilevel analyses of applicant’s, interviewer’s, and organization’s effect on interview ratings
SHIHO Imashiro(Recruit Management Solutions Co., Ltd.)
Issues of evaluation process in selection interview were addressed in this research. Two studies were conducted using the data of actual selection interviews performed by Japanese organizations. Both studies utilized the multilevel model in their analyses. The first study explored the effects of the following three dimensions;(1)the effects of applicants’ personality differences and their levels of general cognitive ability (2)the variances of the ratings due to interviewers, and (3)the variances of the ratings due to the organizations to which the interviewers belong. The results indicated that the ratings are affected by the levels of the applicants’ cognitive ability across all interviewers and organizations included. Also the relationships between the ratings and applicants’ personality and cognitive ability are shown to vary depending on the interviewers as well as the organizations. The second study pertains to the effect of personality similarities between interviewers and applicants on interview ratings and whether this effect differs between structured and unstructured interviews. The results showed that interviewers tend to give lower ratings to the applicants whose personality scores are discrepant to their own scores than to the applicants whose personality scores do not much differ from theirs. However, this rating tendency becomes less in extent in structured interviews.Overall this report demonstrated complexity of interview process and need for future research on how interviewers and applicants interact and how interview evaluations are formed during interactions.
Keyword : selection interview, structured interview, personality-similarity effect, applicants personality and ability, effect of organization’s and interviewer’s difference, multilevel model