Abstract
Despite the popularity of the employment interview in the employee selection literature and organizational talent selection process, few have examined the comments interviewers give after each interview. This study investigated the predictability of the match between interviewer post-interview notes and radar charts from job analysis on the candidate’s later career performance using text mining techniques and data from one of the largest internet-based technology companies in China. A large sample of 7,650 interview candidates who passed the interviews and joined the company was obtained to show that the number of job-related capabilities interviewers mentioned in their notes was positively related to candidate’s job performance, the number of promotions, and negatively related to turnover. Moreover, the dimensions of the radar chart from job analysis covered in the interview moderated the predictability of interview post-interview notes. Our results indicated that a smaller number of radar chart dimensions by which interviewers assessed the candidates in the interview positively moderated candidates’ promotion for product development jobs, and negatively moderated turnover for technical jobs. The implications of these results for structured interview research in both theory and practice are discussed.
Highlights
The employment interview is a proven and popular selection method that has drawn continuous attention from researchers for more than 100 years (Macan, 2009)
The matching score between interviewer narrative comments and dimensions on the radar chart was used as the independent variable to test its effects on performance, promotion, and turnover
The results of our study show that the match between interviewer’s narrative comments and capability dimensions on the radar chart had a significant effect on interview validity in the candidate’s job performance, promotion, and turnover
Summary
The employment interview is a proven and popular selection method that has drawn continuous attention from researchers for more than 100 years (Macan, 2009). Huffcutt and Arthur (1994) proposed a framework that defined interview structure with similar categories: standardized interview questions, and standardized response evaluation. Their framework divided interview structure into four levels, with level 1 being structure with no formal constraints to level 4 being asking the same questions with no modifications allowed. Interview structure is still often utilized dichotomously in many studies, mostly comparing high interview structure with no structure Despite this framework, few studies tried to explore the level 2 interview structure on the outcome of a candidate’s job performance
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