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Helping the People Who Don’t Get Hired

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Re: Helping the People Who Don’t Get Hired

#5
Very interesting story.. weird how this WSJ article references an HN thread

I feel like a group panel interview would skew candidates in a different way than a one on one. There's some psychology around how people act in groups at play that might really mask the viability of a candidate.. for instance in group social settings, wouldn't whoever's the most dominantly confident (or just loud), going to have an outside advantage in impressing the interviewer?

Re: Helping the People Who Don’t Get Hired

#6
post #5

Very interesting story.. weird how this WSJ article references an HN thread I feel like a group panel interview would skew candidates in a different way than a one on one. There's some psychology around how people act in groups at play that might really mask the viability of a candidate.. for instance in group social settings, wouldn't whoever's the most dominantly confident (or just loud), going to have an outside a…

It's a second time today I see people talking about discussions on HN that significantly influenced their life (the other was about freelancing).

Re: Helping the People Who Don’t Get Hired

#8
post #7

The bigger question is whether this experiment will inspire others to try something new and different. If most companies do not adopt such an approach, will the adopters have a competitive advantage?

"The ability to make good decisions regarding people represents one of the last reliable sources of competitive advantage, since very few organizations are very good at it." ~Peter Drucker

Re: Helping the People Who Don’t Get Hired

#9
post #5

Very interesting story.. weird how this WSJ article references an HN thread I feel like a group panel interview would skew candidates in a different way than a one on one. There's some psychology around how people act in groups at play that might really mask the viability of a candidate.. for instance in group social settings, wouldn't whoever's the most dominantly confident (or just loud), going to have an outside a…

Where I work, we make extensive use of group simulations in our hiring decisions. With a well designed scenario, defined roles for group members and contentious issues that must be resolved, you really learn a lot about how people add value, or subtract it, in a group setting.

The hiring team forms a circle at a discrete distance around the group and each of us has an assigned person to watch. That way we can catch body language etc. When doing this, it is remarkable how some people can in a low key, quiet way, bring missing information into the discussion, sway the group or bring it to a constructive consensus. We love those people and they have a high success rate when we hire them.

It is pretty normal that a very impressive candidate one-on-one looks very different in the group setting, and vise versa. We tend only to hire the people that do well in both the one on one and the group.

Oh - the loud dominant strategy is very hard to pull off successfully in a group context. There is too much risk of it being obvious (to the hiring team watching) that it subtracted value.

Re: Helping the People Who Don’t Get Hired

#10
What I wonder about this idea - it sounds like they started out with a open house for everyone who applied, regardless of qualifications, instead of phone screens. So how many really qualified candidates are going to be interested in travelling out to the company for an "open house" with everyone else who applied for the job?

From a candidate's perspective, the phone screen lets you prove yourself to the company and get to know them a little before taking the commitment of actually going there - usually during business hours, possibly disrupting any job you're currently working at. I feel more comfortable taking time off to go there when they've already proven that they're serious about me and I know that they've evaluated me well enough to know that there's at least a good chance I'm a fit for the position.

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