4 Video Case Studies
rhoemo
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted. Experiential Exercise The Most Important Person You’ll Ever Hire
The purpose of this exercise is to give you practice using some of the interview techniques you learned from this chapter.
You should be familiar with the information presented in this chapter, and read this: For parents, children are precious. It’s therefore interesting that parents who hire “nannies” to take care of their children usually do little more than ask several interview questions and conduct what is often, at best, a perfunctory reference check. Given the often questionable validity of interviews, and the (often) relative inexperience of the father or mother doing the interviewing, it’s not surprising that many of these arrangements end in disappointment. You know from this chapter that it is difficult to conduct a valid interview unless you know exactly what you’re looking for and, preferably, structure the interview. Most parents simply aren’t trained to do this.
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
1 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
Set up groups of five or six students. Two students will be the interviewees, while the other students in the group will serve as panel interviewers. The interviewees will develop an interviewer assessment form, and the panel interviewers will develop a structured situational interview for a “nanny.”
7-17. Instructions for the interviewees: The interviewees should leave the room for about 20 minutes. While out of the room, the interviewees should develop an “interviewer assessment form” based on the information presented in this chapter regarding factors that can undermine the usefulness of an interview. During the panel interview, the interviewees should assess the interviewers using the interviewer assessment form. After the panel interviewers have conducted the interview, the interviewees should leave the room to discuss their notes. Did the interviewers exhibit any of the factors that can undermine the usefulness of an interview? If so, which ones? What suggestions would you (the interviewees) make to the interviewers on how to improve the usefulness of the interview? 7-18. Instructions for the interviewers: While the interviewees are out of the room, the panel interviewers will have 20 minutes to develop a short structured situational interview form for a “nanny.” The panel interview team will interview two candidates for the position. During the panel interview, each interviewer should be taking notes on a copy of the structured situational interview form. After the panel interview, the panel interviewers should discuss their notes. What were your first impressions of each interviewee? Were your impressions similar? Which candidate would you all select for the position and why?
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
2 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
Zipcar is a company that allows customers to share a car for a fee as small as a short cab ride. Individuals who become Zipcar members are able to reserve a vehicle with as little advance notice as 1 hour through any wireless device, unlock a car with a card that members carry with them, and drive for the reserved period of time. The goal of Zipcar is to reduce the number of cars being driven and thereby reduce environmental pollution.
Zipcar is a fast-growing innovative company that supports the environment and is socially responsible. This makes it an attractive place to work for many who are looking for a company that is doing something new. When selecting new employees, Zipcar aims to find people who are passionate about the brand, professional, courteous, and presentable. It wants someone who understands the value of the organization and the culture within which the company operates.
7-19. What makes Zipcar an attractive employer for which to work? 7-20. What do those doing the actual hiring at Zipcar feel are important characteristics to find in potential employees? 7-21. List three behavioral and three situational questions that you would use to interview Zipcar employment applicants. 7-22. According to the video, what practices should you avoid during an interview? How do these compare with those we discussed in this chapter?
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
3 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
Maria Fernandez is a bright, popular, and well-informed mechanical engineer who graduated with an engineering degree from State University in June 2013. During the spring preceding her graduation, she went out on many job interviews, most of which she thought were conducted courteously and were reasonably useful in giving both her and the prospective employer a good impression of where each of them stood on matters of importance to both of them. It was, therefore, with great anticipation that she looked forward to an interview with the one firm in which she most wanted to work: Apex Environmental. She had always had a strong interest in the environment and believed that the best use of her training and skills lay in working for a firm like Apex, where she thought she could have a successful career while making the world a better place.
The interview, however, was a disaster. Maria walked into a room where five men—the president of the company, two vice presidents, the marketing director, and another engineer—began throwing questions at her that she felt were aimed primarily at tripping her up rather than finding out what she could offer through her engineering skills. The questions ranged from being unnecessarily discourteous (“Why would you take a job as a waitress in college if you’re such an intelligent person?”) to being irrelevant and sexist (“Are you planning on starting a family anytime soon?”). Then, after the interview, she met with two of the gentlemen individually (including the president), and the discussions focused on her technical expertise. She thought that these later discussions went fairly well. However, given the apparent aimlessness and even mean-spiritedness of the panel interview, she was astonished when several days later the firm made her a job offer.
The offer forced her to consider several matters. From her point of view, the job itself was perfect. She liked what she would be doing, the industry, and the firm’s location. And in fact, the president had been quite courteous in subsequent discussions. She was left wondering whether the panel interview had been intentionally tense to see how she’d stand up under pressure, and, if so, why they would do such a thing?
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
4 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
7-23. How would you explain the nature of the panel interview Maria had to endure? Specifically, do you think it reflected a well-thought-out interviewing strategy on the part of the firm or carelessness on the part of the firm’s management? If it were carelessness, what would you do to improve the interview process at Apex Environmental? 7-24. Would you take the job offer if you were Maria? If you’re not sure, what additional information would help you make your decision? 7-25. The job of applications engineer for which Maria was applying requires (a) excellent technical skills with respect to mechanical engineering, (b) a commitment to working in the area of pollution control, (c) the ability to deal well and confidently with customers who have engineering problems, (d) a willingness to travel worldwide, and (e) a very intelligent and well-balanced personality. List 10 questions you would ask when interviewing applicants for the job.
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
5 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
Like virtually all the other HR-related activities at Carter Cleaning Centers, the company currently has no organized approach to interviewing job candidates. Store managers, who do almost all the hiring, have a few of their own favorite questions that they ask. But in the absence of any guidance from management, they all admit their interview performance leaves something to be desired. Similarly, Jack Carter himself is admittedly most comfortable dealing with what he calls the “nuts and bolts” machinery aspect of his business and has never felt particularly comfortable having to interview management or other job applicants. Jennifer is sure that this lack of formal interviewing practices, procedures, and training account for some of the employee turnover and theft problems. Therefore, she wants to do something to improve her company’s performance in this important area.
7-26. In general, what can Jennifer do to improve her employee interviewing practices? Should she develop interview forms that list questions for management and nonmanagement jobs? If so, how should these look and what questions should be included? Should she initiate a computer-based interview approach? If so, why and how? 7-27. Should she implement an interview training program for her managers, and if so, specifically what should be the content of such a training program? In other words, if she did decide to start training her management people to be better interviewers, what should she tell them and how should she tell it to them?
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
6 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
*The accompanying strategy map for this chapter is in the MyManagementLab, and the overall map on the inside back cover of this text outlines the relationships involved.
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
7 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
As an experienced HR professional, Lisa knew that the company’s new testing program would go only so far. She knew that, at best, employment tests accounted for perhaps 30% of employee performance. It was essential that she and her team design a package of interviews that her hotel managers could use to assess—on an interactive and personal basis—candidates for various positions. It was only in that way that the hotel could hire the sorts of employees whose competencies and behaviors would translate into the kinds of outcomes—such as improved guest services—that the hotel required to achieve its strategic goals.
Lisa receives budgetary approval to design a new employee interview system. She and her team start by reviewing the job descriptions and job specifications for the positions of front-desk clerk, assistant manager, security guard, valet, door person, and housekeeper. Focusing on developing structure valet, door for each position, the team sets about devising interview questions. For example, for the front-desk clerk and assistant manager, they formulate several behavioral questions, including, “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an irate person, and what you did.” And, “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with several conflicting demands at once, such as having to study for several final exams at the same time, while working. How did you handle the
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
8 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
situation?” They also developed a number of situational questions, including “Suppose you have a very pushy incoming guest who insists on being checked in at once, while at the same time you’re trying to process the check-out for another guest who must be at the airport in 10 minutes. How would you handle the situation?” For these and other positions, they also developed several job knowledge questions. For example, for security guard applicants, one question her team created was, “What are the local legal restrictions, if any, regarding using products like Mace if confronted by an unruly person on the hotel grounds?” The team combined the questions into structured interviews for each job, and turned to testing, fine-tuning, and finally using the new system.
7-28. For the jobs of security guard, and valet, develop five additional situational, five behavioral, and five job knowledge questions, with descriptive good/average/poor answers. 7-29. Combine your questions into a complete interview that you would give to someone who must interview candidates for these jobs.
MyManagementLab Go to mymanagementlab.com for Auto-graded writing questions as well as the following Assisted-graded writing questions:
7-30. Briefly discuss and give examples of at least five common interviewing mistakes. What recommendations would you give for avoiding these interviewing mistakes? 7-31. Why do you think situational interviews yield a higher mean validity than do job-related or behavioral interviews, which in turn yield a higher mean validity than do psychological interviews? 7-32. MyManagementLab only—comprehensive writing assignment for this chapter.
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
9 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
unstructured (or nondirective) interview , 192 structured (or directive) interview , 192 situational interview , 193 behavioral interview , 193 job-related interview , 194 stress interview , 195 unstructured sequential interview , 195 structured sequential interview , 195 panel interview , 195 mass interview , 195 candidate-order (or contrast) error , 199 structured situational interview , 202
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
10 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
1 Denis Morin and Denis L. Pascale, “The Structured Interview: Enhancing Staff Selection,” Personnel Psychology 63, no. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 250–255. 2 Michael McDaniel et al., “The Validity of Employment Interviews: A Comprehensive Review and Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology 79, no. 4 (1994), p. 599. See also Laura Graves and Ronald Karren, “The Employee Selection Interview: A Fresh Look at an Old Problem,” Human Resource Management 35, no. 2 (Summer 1996), pp. 163–180. For an argument against holding selection interviews, see D. Heath et al., “Hold the Interview,” Fast Company, no. 136 (June 2009), pp. 51–52. 3 Therese Macan, “The Employment Interview: A Review of Current Studies and Directions for Future Research,” Human Resource Management Review 19 (2009), pp. 203–218. 4 Duane Schultz and Sydney Schultz, Psychology and Work Today (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998), p. 830. A study found that interview structure “was best described by four dimensions: questioning consistency, evaluation standardization, question sophistication, and rapport building.” Chapman and Zweig, “Developing a Nomological Network.” 5 McDaniel et al., “The Validity of Employment Interviews,” p. 602. 6 We’ll see later in this chapter that there are other ways to “structure” selection interviews. Many of them have nothing to do with using structured guides like these. 7 Laura Gollub Williamson et al., “Employment Interview on Trial: Linking Interview Structure with Litigation Outcomes,” Journal of Applied Psychology 82, no. 6 (1996), p. 908. As an example, the findings of one recent study “Demonstrate the value of using highly structured interviews to minimize the potential influence of applicant demographic characteristics on selection decisions.” Julie McCarthy, Chad Van Iddekinge, and Michael Campion, “Are Highly Structured Job Interviews Resistant to Demographic Similarity Effects?” Personnel Psychology 60, no. 3 (2010), pp. 325–359. 8 Williamson et al., “Employment Interview on Trial.”
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
11 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM
9 McDaniel et al., “The Validity of Employment Interviews,” p. 602. 10 Paul Taylor and Bruce Small, “Asking Applicants What They Would Do Versus What They Did: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Situational and Past Behavior Employment Interview Questions,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 75, no. 3 (September 2002), pp. 277–295. 11 Margery Weinstein, “You’re Hired!” Training 48, no. 4, pp. 34-37; [no longer online] http://www.trainingmag.com/article/you%E2 %80%99re-hired accessed July 19, 2013. 12 Aparna Nancherla, “Anticipated Growth in Behavioral Interviewing,” Training & Development, April 2008, p. 20. 13 Bill Stoneman, “Matching Personalities with Jobs Made Easier with Behavioral Interviews,” American Banker, November 30, 2000, p. 8a. 14 Martha Frase-Blunt, “Games Interviewers Play,” HR Magazine, January 2001, pp. 104–114. 15 Kevin Murphy and Charles Davidshofer, Psychological Testing (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), pp. 430–431. 16 Marlene Dixon et al., “The Panel Interview: A Review of Empirical Research and Guidelines for Practice,” Public Personnel Management 31, no. 3 (Fall 2002), pp. 397–429. 17 Ibid. See also M. Ronald Buckley, Katherine A. Jackson, and Mark C. Bolino, “The Influence of Relational Demography on Panel Interview Ratings: A Field Experiment,” Personnel Psychology 60, no. 3 (Autumn 2007), pp. 627–646.
https://jigsaw.vitalsource.com/api/v0/books/9781323081716/print?from...
12 of 12 6/3/2016 7:39 AM