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Since 1970, Development Dimensions International (DDI) has been helping hundreds of corporations around the world close the gap- between where their business needs to go and the talent they must have to take them there- in good times and in tough times.
More than 3,200 high-quality hiring decisions are made every hour and 20,000,000+ candidates have been successfully screened using DDI's behavioral interviewing, testing and assessment systems.
According to DDI research, ninety-two percent of interviewers give themselves an "A" or "B" in interviewing, even though more than half admits to basing hiring decisions on instinct. And, only seven percent of untrained interviewers report a lack of confidence in their interviewing skills. So, if we are truly as good at interviewing as we think we are, why do so many job seekers report having been asked questions like:
* What would you do with an elephant if you had one?
* How do you make a peanut butter sandwich?
* If you were a tree, what kind would you be?
Clearly, these are not the sorts of questions that can accurately predict future job success. And while most of us like to believe that we are strong judges of character, instinct is simply not sufficient when so much - reduced turnover, increased speed to productivity, and growing your leadership pipeline- is at stake.
Study after study clearly shows the correlation between strong interview techniques and a candidate's on-the-job success. How can interviewers identify the best candidates? In the following article, written by Ann Howard, Ph.D., DDI's Chief Scientist when this article was written and Johanna Johnson M.S., then Research Intern, we'll explore this topic! http://www.ddiworld.com/pdf/interviewing_wp_ddi.pdf Historically, the interview has been one of the most commonly used, and most liked, selection practices available (Judge, Higgins, & Cable, 2000; Hausknecht, Day, & Thomas, 2004). This was true in spite of two very important facts. First, typical interviews did not provide consistent results. Second, they did not accurately predict which applicants would be high-performers (Judge et al., 2000).
Perhaps most surprising, these historical problems are not just historical. Traditional, unstructured interviews continue to be conducted with alarming regularity (Judge et al., 2000). Moreover, interviewers don't seem to recognize how ineffective they really are. A recent DDI study found that...