An Investigation of Interviewer Note Taking in the Field

Jacob Fischer,James Breaugh

doi:10.25035/pad.2021.02.002

Jacob Fischer, James Breaugh

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.25035/pad.2021.02.002

Copy DOI

Abstract

Although a key component of a structured interview is note taking, relatively few studies have investigated the effects of note taking. To address this lack of research, we conducted a study that examined the effects of note taking in a work setting. As predicted, we found that the total number of notes taken by interviewers and the level of detail of these notes were positively related to the ratings these interviewers gave to job applicants, that interviewer ratings of applicants who were hired were predictive of their job performance ratings, and that interviewer ratings mediated the relationships between note taking and performance ratings (i.e., the number of notes and their level of detail did not have a direct effect on performance ratings). We also showed that, if uncontrolled, interviewer nesting can result in misleading conclusions about the value of taking detailed notes.

Highlights

Interviewer note taking is an important factor in explaining the effectiveness of structured interviews for selecting employees (e.g., Campion et al, 1997; Roulin et al, 2019)
We found that the total number of notes taken by interviewers and the level of detail of these notes were positively related to the ratings these interviewers gave to job applicants, that interviewer ratings of applicants who were hired were predictive of their job performance ratings, and that interviewer ratings mediated the relationships between note taking and performance ratings
Because the interviewer ratings and notes came from 10 interviewers, we checked whether scores for these variables were related to the interviewers

Summary

Introduction

Interviewer note taking is an important factor in explaining the effectiveness of structured interviews for selecting employees (e.g., Campion et al, 1997; Roulin et al, 2019). Note taking has been hypothesized to result in more elaborate processing of the information received from an applicant and this information being stored in a more organized manner in memory (Middendorf & Macan, 2002) Such information storage and being able to review notes should result in an interviewer being better able to recall information obtained during the interview (Burnett et al, 1998). Taking notes (Huffcutt & Woehr, 1999) and taking more notes (Brtek & Motowidlo, 2002) seem to improve the accuracy of interviewer judgments in predicting performance ratings We characterize these conclusions as being tentative because relatively few studies of note taking have been conducted. Given the hypothesized importance of interviewer note taking, it is understandable why researchers (e.g., Levashina et al, 2014) have stressed the need for additional research that further explores the value of note taking

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion