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Subscribe to RSSWant to ace that interview and increase your chances of actually landing the job? A new study says the best thing to do is interview on a different day than your strongest competition. Or, if you think you're a strong candidate, at least try to schedule your own meeting for the morning.
According to new research published in the journal Psychological Science, interviewers have trouble seeing the forest from the trees. They often make their decisions based on the ratings they’ve given the interviewees directly before the interview, as opposed to someone’s true merits.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Harvard Business School found that people interviewing MBA degree candidates tended to rate applicants based on the earlier scores they’d given out that day — not in relation to the entire pool of students applying for the class.
Based on nearly a decade of interview data, collected from over 9,000 applicants to an undisclosed American business school (which is neither of the authors’ own institutions), the study showed that interviews earlier in the day had a negative impact on assessments for the strong people that followed with interviews later in the day. If an interviewer had already given out several high scores on a scale of 1 to 5, the next candidate who walked into the room was likely to receive a lower grade, regardless of his or her actual qualifications.
Psychologist, Harvard business professor and study co-author Francesca Gino has long studied how we make decisions in our daily lives, from what we buy to whom we date. Her recent findings in Psychological Science, Gino says, might apply wherever professional decision makers see different applicants on multiple days.
Take a loan officer for instance. According to the study, it’s likely that a person who has already recommended three loan applicants on any given day may be reluctant to recommend the fourth person they see— regardless of how qualified he or she might be for the car or home loan. Or consider a judge in a busy court who hands out dozens of sentences on any given day. After dispensing several lenient sentences in the morning, the judge could come back from lunch and, as the study puts it, “be disproportionately reluctant to evaluate four, five, or six people in a row in too similar a fashion.” So the judge might just hand out a stricter sentence to someone being sentenced later in the day.
Professor Robert Shiller, a Yale economist and author of “Irrational Exuberance,” says that Olympic judges could potentially run into these kinds of issues when they’re scoring gymnasts, for example. Or, a professor might bump against this when he’s grading exams, and might give a lower score to an otherwise good exam graded later in the day.
“If I’ve been giving out a lot of A’s, for instance,” Shiller explains, “I might feel like I have been giving out too many, and have to give a lower grade to the next student.”
Luckily, Professor Shiller has a method for correcting this potential bias: he reads through and grades the first question, then scores the second of each exam, and so on. This way, an exam that might be graded first on question one can be graded later on question two.
Unfortunately, most of us can’t control the strength of the other applicants on the day we’re being interviewed. But, the Psychological Science study does suggest that a strong applicant will fare better in an early morning interview slot: either that applicant will get a strong evaluation based on his or her merits or at least won’t be the victim of a harsher score based on prior applicants.
Tessa Deutsch, a managing director and head of the legal and compliance practice group at the New York recruiting firm Glocap, says these kinds of findings might be more relevant in the case of high-volume searches of applicants with less technical expertise, where the interviewer is looking at hundreds of people to fill a certain slot, and dozens are qualified.
“But for many of the positions we fill,” Deutsch says, “a candidate meets with a company multiple times, and there are really only a few people who would fit well in a certain job role.”
Regardless, it can’t hurt to be the first one in the door.
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So how does one do this? How does one know when their 'strongest competition' is interviewing at all? Applicants don't have privy to who their competition is nor do they know if they will get to be the first in the door for interviews. Ridiculous advice.
This study is flawed in more ways than one. It can also pay to be one of the later interviews. Often times at the start of the interviews they are looking for that ideal candidate that can do six different things. If you can't do it all they move on to the next person. As the process wears on and they realize they are not going to find anyone that can do all six things they lower the standard and start looking for someone that can do five. You may have been able to do five, but if you were interviewed early on your resume has already gone in the reject pile. That means that someone who comes in late and can do five will get the job because they are benefiting from the lowered expectations, while the person that came in earlier is already forgotten about since they were rejected by the earlier, higher criteria. This type of thing happens a lot these days as companies increasingly are looking to hire people who can fill multiple roles.
The study is stupid. Having to give the score at the end of the interview before seeing the other people is not how it works in the real world. Decisions are made after seeing ALL the interviews. The problem is that the people need to RANK interviews AFTER all done.
RANK them after all seen, NOT scored after each interview. The Olympic example above is the exact problem with this study.
If you are the best you will get the job.
After sitting on many interview panels, we did give numeric rankings to each individual immediately following an individuals interview. I noticed that the person who has the first interview of the day received no higher than a 6 or 7 on a 10 point ranking. The person who has the first interview immediately after lunch tended to receive higher scores because we had already established a standard, we were rested from the lunch break and ready to find the right person. Those who interviewed last had the toughest time getting high scores because we were fed-up with the process.
In ranking presentations (not too terribly different from interviews), I have found the 1st one sets the bar for the rest. Those after the 1st tned to get compared positively or negatively against the first. If there are more than 5 to review, the last gets remembered - good or bad - and the middle are forgotten unless they were exceptional. Based on my observations, I try to be either first or last, and avoid the middle.
I would think the opposite could also be true - especially if none of the candidates have all the qualities that are desired. Expectations start out high for the first few, but after interviewers start to realize that the perfect candidate may not apply, subsequent candidates may get the benefit of that dose of reality and start looking better. Kind of like a bar late at night.
That is unless you work for the civilian federal government. Just dont be a white male and you will get that job!!
For very junior-level jobs (even recent MBAs, as mentioned in their survey), an employer can choose among hundreds of candidates, can select one that fits the bill, and easily replace that person if he or she does not work out. However, our research (on professionals, managers and executives--as opposed to recent MBAs) proves that the person who is interviewed last has the best chance of being hired. That’s because the last person benefits from all the thinking the manager has done. The manager is able to discuss all of the issues of concern with this final applicant.
Ask the hiring manager (or the assistant) how many other people they are interviewing and what their interview schedule is. Try to be at the end of their schedule.
Here's what we say in our book, Mastering the Job Interview and Winning the Money Game:
Most jobs are created for people: Most interviewers don’t know clearly what they will want the new person to do. Yet job hunters expect the hiring manager to tell them exactly what the job will be like and get annoyed when the manager can’t tell them.
Generally, the job description depends on who will be in the job. Therefore, help the hiring manager figure out what the new person should do. If you don’t help him, another job hunter will. This is called “negotiating the job.” You are trying to remove all of the company’s objections to hiring you, as well as all of your objections to working for them. Try to make it work for both of you. But time is your enemy. Imagine what happens in the hiring process as time passes:
You have an interview. When I, your coach, ask how it went, you tell me how great it was: The two of you hit it off, and you are sure you will be called back. You see this interview as something frozen in time, and you wait for the magical phone call.
But after you left, the manager met with someone else, who brought up new issues. Now his criteria for what he wants have changed somewhat, and consequently, his impression of you has also changed. He was honest when he said he liked you, but things look different to him now. Perhaps you have what he needs to meet his new criteria, or perhaps you could convince him that his new direction is wrong, but you don’t know what is now on his mind.
You call to find out “how things are going.” He says he is still interviewing and will call you later when he has decided. Actually, then it will probably be too late for you. His thinking is constantly evolving as he meets with people. You were already out of the running. Your call did nothing to influence his thinking: You did not address his new concerns. You asked for a status report of where he was in the hiring process, and that’s what you got. You did nothing to get back into the loop of people he might consider or to find out the new issues that are now on his mind.
The manager meets more people and further defines the position. Interviewing helps him decide what he wants. You are getting further and further away from his new requirements.
You are not aware of this. You remember the great meeting you two had. You remind me that he said he really liked you. You insist on freezing that moment in time. You don’t want to do anything to rock the boat or appear desperate. You hope it works out. “The ball is in his court,” you say. “I gave it my best. There’s nothing I can do but wait.” So you decide to give it more time... time to go wrong.
You have to imagine what is going on as time passes. Perhaps the hiring manager is simply very busy and is not working on this at all. Or perhaps things are moving along without you. Statistics prove that the person who is interviewed last has the best chance of being hired. That’s because the last person benefits from all the thinking the manager has done. The manager is able to discuss all of the issues of concern with this final applicant.