Employing Tallying and Take-the-Best Heuristics in the Personnel Selection Decision-Making Process

Abstract

Managers could benefit from using heuristics in personnel selection, as simple rules reduce time required to decide, without necessarily sacrificing predictive power. The aim of this study is to examine how managers spontaneously employ tallying and take-the-best heuristics in personnel selection and in which ways do they interpret the effects of these heuristics in their decision-making process. We conducted a laboratory experiment with 11 middle managers in a large Estonian financial sector company and 26 economics students. The results show that most managers are not cognizant about the decision-making process used, citing intuition, but the selection decision-making process is better characterized by heuristics. We also find that heuristics can help reduce decision variance. Therefore, managers’ awareness of their decision-making should be instructed to be more aware of their decision-making process and that graphical decision-aids favoring ecologically rational heuristics can be helpful in the personnel selection decision-making process.