ThriveMap - pre-hire assessment specialists - recently researched the amount of time hiring managers are taking to decide about job candidates.
The average length of a job interview was found to last 45 minutes and 25 per cent of those questioned admitted that they take just five minutes or less to decide on whether the candidate sat in front of them is suitable for the job. These figures show that around 90 per cent - or even more of that time - may be wasted.
A further 36 per cent of respondents said that they know within 6 to 10 minutes of the start of the interview whether someone is right for the role, with only 9 per cent saying that it took them longer than 30 minutes to make up their minds.
Only 2 per cent of those doing the hiring state that they do not come to a decision during the interview - meaning that only a very small percentage take into consideration everything that a candidate has to say before making up their mind. It would appear that gut feeling is having a huge part to play in recruitment - with many hiring managers making snap judgements.
Chris Platts - CEO of ThriveMap - said:
“This research indicates that hiring managers let unconscious bias play a major role in the recruitment process. If almost two thirds of managers are making up their mind in under 10 minutes what’s the point in having a structured and thorough interview process? Organisations need to put measures in place such as interview training and technology to help managers make more rational choices. Pre-hire assessments that provide objective candidate comparisons can help managers to delay their intuition and hire based on suitability, not unconscious likeability or similarity. Not only is this fairer for candidates, it’s proven to lead to better hiring outcomes.”
A further new study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology questioned 166 interviewers - before and after they interviewed 691 students at a career fair. They queried how long it took the interviewer to come to a conclusion about hiring the candidates and found that more experienced interviewers made their decisions faster than people who were newer to hiring.
The researchers established that roughly 5 per cent of decisions were made within the first minute of the interview and under 30 per cent within five minutes. The majority - 52 per cent of the interviewers - made their hiring decision between five and fifteen minutes of the interview - and it was found that the candidates who engaged the interviewer in conversation unrelated to the structured interview, were given greater consideration than those who did not - with the report stating:
“Thus, when preparing for interviews, applicants should practice responses to common ‘conversation starters’ that often emerge during rapport building.”
It was stated that after the fourth candidate, the amount of information the interviewers are trying to sort becomes overwhelming and they revert to making snap decisions based on gut feeling - causing the researchers to warn:
“Applicants interviewing later in the schedule might not get as much opportunity to perform as those earlier in the schedule.”
It would appear that if an interview lasts for less than 30 minutes it was probably not that successful, as if the employer has made the snap decision not to hire they do not need to spend much time getting to know the applicant.
