The validity of employment interviews: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

This meta-analytic review presents the findings of a project investigating the validity of the employment interview. Analyses are based on 245 coefficients derived from 86,311 individuals. Results show that interview validity depends on the content of the interview (situational, job related, or psychological), how the interview is conducted (structured vs. unstructured; board vs. individual), and the nature of the criterion (job performance, training performance, and tenure; research or administrative ratings). Situational interviews had higher validity than did job-related interviews, which, in turn, had higher validity than did psychologically based interviews. Structured interviews were found to have higher validity than unstructured interviews. Interviews showed similar validity for job performance and training performance criteria, but validity for the tenure criteria was lower.

Publication Bias in the Organizational Sciences

“…To illustrate the use of the advanced methods to detect and assess publication bias, we obtained the data on employment interview validities from McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, and Maurer (1994). This data set was re-analyzed in the book on publication bias by Rothstein et al (2005b;see, e.g., Duval, 2005;Hedges & Vevea, 2005;.…”

A meta-analytic perspective on the valid use of subjective human judgement to make medical school admission decisions

“…Corrections for range restriction and criterion unreliability were generated using estimates from similar studies in the literature. The third and fourth entries in the table report comprehensive meta-analyses for unstructured and semi-structured interviews from the employment literature, and both performed corrections for criterion unreliability and range restriction [34,35]. The fifth entry in Table 2 reports on validity estimates from medical education as correlations between interviews and communication scores on a licensure test and between interviews and the academic achievement component of a licensure test [36].…”

“…of coefficients) {no. of applicants}Observed correlationCorrected validity coefficientsGoho et al [33]Academic health care – post-secondary admissionMeta-analysis – academic perform.(19) {4488} r  = .03 r c  = .05Goho et al [33]Academic health care – post-secondary admissionMeta-analysis – clinical perform.(10) {1283} r  = .08 r c  = .15McDaniel et al [34]EmploymentMeta-analysis – job performance.(39) {9330} r  = .18 r c  = .33Le & Schmidt year [35]EmploymentMeta-analysis – job performance(34) {8,985} r  = .18 r c  = .41Kulatunga, et al [36]Medical school admissionsLMCC I & II communication/clinical-academic(1) {97} r  = .24/ r  = .08 r c  = .30/ r c  = .09Al-Nasir et al [37]Medical school admissionsFirst-year grade(1) {68} r  = .28 r c  = .32Murden et al [38]Medical school admissionClerkship perform.(1) {435} r  = .22 r c  = .28Meredith et al [39]Medical school admissionClerkship perform/licensure (1) {85} r  = .32/ r  = .08 r c  = .38/ r c  = .12Average (a) (106) {24,771} r a  = .15 r ac  = .29…”

Exploring Methods for Developing Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales for Evaluating Structured Interview Performance

“…The employment interview is a selection tool designed to predict job performance using applicants' oral responses to inquiries (McDaniel et al, 1994); it was introduced into the professional literature by Walter Dill Scott in 1915(Salgado, 2001). Long-standing narrative review and meta-analytic evidence (e.g., Mayfield, 1964;Ulrich & Trumbo, 1965;Wagner, 1949) have consistently supported the use of structured interviews, in which questions and scoring guidelines are standardized across applicants, over unstructured interviews that allow questions to vary across applicants and lack a standardized scoring procedure.…”

“…Results indicate online participants are able to produce responses of sufficient quality to generate BARS for evaluating structured interview performance. We conclude by discussing limitations to this approach and future directions for research and practice.Keywords Amazon Mechanical Turk; behaviorally anchored rating scales; crowdsourcing; employment interviews; performance appraisal; social skills; structured interviews doi:10.1002/ets2.12152 Employment interviews are one of the most popular means of selecting personnel (Levashina, Hartwell, Morgeson, & Campion, 2014;McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, & Maurer, 1994). Structured interviews that present all interviewees with the same standardized questions have higher validities for predicting job performance than unstructured interviews that vary the questions posed to each interviewee (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998).…”