Do interviews predict job performance? How about dating for marriage? | Hacker News Reader

Do interviews predict job performance? How about dating for marriage?

andrewchenblog.com

35 pointsandrew_null21 comments

In Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, he referenced how Professor Gottman can predict which couples will survive the long-term with just a short meeting.

"University of Washington researchers who have been putting marriages under the equivalent of a microscope say it is possible to predict which newlywed couples will divorce from the way partners interact in just the first three minutes of a discussion about an area of continuing disagreement.

Couples who later divorced began these talks with significantly greater displays of negative emotions, words and gestures and fewer positive ones than did couples who remained married over the course of a six-year study."

And with a longer study (one hour interview, past relationship research):

"Psychologists trying to determine why marriages flourish or end in divorce have refined a tool that predicts with 87 percent accuracy which newlywed couples will remain married and which will divorce four to six years later. It is also 81 percent accurate in predicting which marriages will survive after seven to nine years."

http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/09-99arc...

http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2000archive/03-00arc...

Kudoz to Professor Gottman. However, a more relevant question is: can _you_ predict the long term relations around you just by "blinking"? I can't, hence I don't see any practical application of Malcolm's "Blink".

According to Doctor Phil, it's not if you fight, but how you fight. Does it end up in name-calling or is there respect involved?

Don't do anything according to Doctor Phil. The guy is a lunatic.

He is, but in that case, he's right. You can't avoid conflict long term, but how you resolve them is very important. It is very possible to be in sharp disagreement over something and yet resolve the situation with respect intact.

I don't necessarily agree in all cases. Couples who fight 'rationally' may well be rational enough to see that they're not the right match, and that they should both keep looking. That's certainly been the case with me.

People who are staying together despite hating each others' guts may be doing it for reasons that will, paradoxically, keep them together for the long run, to their detriment. Sometimes the right answer is to split up.

An interesting take on short-term predictors and how they bear out in the long-term.

To continue the dating analogy, you don't just get married after a romantic dinner for two (unless, perhaps, you're a celebrity); you 'test drive' the relationship first. You also, hopefully, maximise chances of success at bringing up kids, sharing finances etc, by getting a chance to learn the other person's values and attitudes.

This seems to me bang in line with the 'give an interviewee some real work to do' school of thought. I do wonder why so few types of jobs involve a trial or probation period, though; perhaps due to mistrust? When you start dating someone, you're not committing to the next n years with them, yet when you join a company, you kind of are.

I've seen from MMO guild leadership that having a trial period can really help stop significant problems further down the line (although, unfortunately, not always). Yet I'd not consider hiring an employee, at least in the software dev world, on spec (i.e. the 'do some real work' part of the interview is actually the start of the job). The only intermediate is perhaps contracting someone first, then bringing them on fulltime. I wonder how customs have evolved this way; respect for other people's need to pay the bills? Desire to minimise short jobs, churn, and to maximise the ability to seek new jobs while still in one? Hmm.

>why so few types of jobs involve a trial or probation period, though; perhaps due to mistrust?

Good employees might be risk averse due to life circumstances (family obligations, etc.). Asking someone to leave a job where he's liked and feels secure for one where he knows he's being "auditioned" for the first few months might not sit well around the dinner table at home.

Indeed, I am sure for many a trial period wouldn't be acceptable, but companies should give those that show potential a choice if the alternative is an outright rejection.

Agree. There might be some nasty adverse selection bias for the employer as well. Those who are at risk of getting fired at their current employer will probably jump ship for anything, and those who are rockstars (to use a cliche) won't worry about the auditioning process. However, those in the middle, even though they would probably be great employees, might not take the job due to risk aversion.

Recently we've started giving automatic IQ tests to everyone that applies to us - then we take the top 20-30% and look at their resumes to get 10-15 candidates for the in person interview. So far it's worked remarkably well - precisely in directing us to candidates that looked weak on their resume but turned out to be brilliant on the job.

Surely you can't evaluate whether it works "brilliantly well" until you have compared the success of your selected sample against another randomly selected sample.

You may find that carrying out interviews on the roll of a dice is equally as effective at letting you meet candidates who wouldn't otherwise make the CV-lead cut.

One of the things I looked for were candidates that previously would not have made the cut because of a crappy resume - and there were quite a few of those.

I didn't do any kind of controlled study - so this is definitely anecdotal evidence.

I seem to remember reading that using actual IQ tests is against hiring laws (although job-specific tests that happen to measure IQ are fine), is this not the case?

Yeah, we definitely don't call them IQ tests.

I believe it's illegal to give IQ tests to prospective employees in the US.

PS: A basic competency test is ok.

I think you are probably right -- IIRC (IANAL), you have to be able to show that the test has direct bearing on the job. IQ tests would be suspect.

You can turn an interview into real work: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/gv981229.htm

Nick Corcodilos was a pretty popular voice 10 years ago and was one of the first to give that sort of hiring advice.

For both the interviewing and dating analogies, OP overlooks the most critical detail that any good salesman could tell you: decisions are made by emotion and confirmed by logic. He barely touched upon the emotional aspect.

What could companies do to better employ emotional considerations?

First they must treat the recruitment process as a two way street. Why hire someone who will become unhappy or disillusioned and just leave? Yet companies continue to hide their underwear until after the candidate is hired. Do you really think they won't notice that you misrepresented yourselves?

They must also focus more on the people side of things. Take the candidate out for dinner or drinks. Invite the spouse. Take them to an event. You can learn just as much about each other as you can from a technical test.

I'm surprised companies don't do this much anymore. Have we gotten so technical that we forgot that we're human?

Agreed - both interviewing and dating are trying to solve the same problem: "How to judge how people will be in the long term, after spending a small amount of time with them?"

No amount of tests or 20 questions can give unequivocal answers to these questions, especially as both interviewing and dating, although they pretend to solve the question in an objective manner, are really subjective in nature (i.e. what is good for one person/company may not be good for the other).

I have to agree with that.

I've been in my current job for 10 years. One of the things that initially sold me on the company was that besides the technical stuff, they took time to get to know me as a person during the very long interview day. A bunch of us went out to lunch and chatted, back in the office we discussed everything from hobby projects to old work, etc. Since they had flown me over 1,000 miles for the interview, people suggested some places to visit until my return flight two days later (I came up on Friday and left on Sunday) so I could see if I might like living in the area, etc...

And in the end I had a really good feeling about working for these guys that has pretty much persisted for the time I've been here.

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