Human resource professionals' perceptions of interviewer training

The employment interview is the most frequently used selection device, but the majority of employment interviews are conducted by individuals with little or no training in the process (Chapman and Zweig, 2005; van der Zee el al., 2002). This lack of training seems puzzling given that there is strong evidence that managers often commit numerous errors during the interview process and in making hiring decisions (Schmidt and Zimmerman, 2004; Dougherty et al., 1986). Scholars have shown interviewers' questions often do not address the demands of the job (Hedge and Teachout, 1992; Taylor and Sniezek, 1984). Similarly, untrained managers frequently go on intuition or "gut" feelings about the candidate being interviewed, are overconfident about their judgments, and tend to overestimate how much they know (Harris and Eder, 1999). Additionally, managers often overlook many key points from the interview (Dougherty et al., 1994; Carlson et al., 1971) and also fail to take the most effective notes (Middendorf and Macan, 2002). As a result of their overconfidence, managers also fail to learn from their experiences and adjust their methods in later interviews (Kleinmuntz, 1990). Interviewer training has been shown to reduce the most common and egregious errors interviewers make (Chapman and Rowe, 2002; Howard and Dailey, 1979). Certainly, this impact may vary depending on the quality of the training program (Maurer and Fay, 1988), but research has demonstrated that providing interviewers training significantly enhances the quality of the employment decision (Conway et al., 1995; Huffcutt and Woehr, 1999; Highhouse, 2008). One reason that organizations might not provide interviewer training is because trainers often advocate for the use of a structured interview process. Although research clearly indicates that structured interviews have greater reliability and validity than unstructured interviews, (McDaniel et al., 1994; Huffcutt and Arthur, 1994; Weisner and Cronshaw, 1988), the majority of managers still apparently do not use a structured process (van der Zee et al., 2002). Lievens and DePaepe (2004) have shown that managers have pushed back against structured interviews due to their perceptions that they lose control of the interview process. Structured interviews also (initially) require preparation time from the interviewer (Harris and Eder, 1999). The Role of Human Resources Professionals in Interviewer Training Although there are a variety of ways that organizations can go about implementing interviewer training, one would expect that organizations that have Human Resource (HR) professionals on staff would involve these individuals in this process. Whether the decision is to internally develop interviewer training or purchase it externally from a vendor, HR professionals are the group that should have the most professional expertise to determine whether interviewer training is needed within an organization and if so, the best method to use. Due to their expertise and role within the organization, HR professionals might be the source that proposes to implement interviewer training and serves as advocates for this training within their organizations. Alternatively, some HR professionals might not see this type of training as an important priority and one that is likely to produce the most valued return, but still have to assume the advocacy role because it is assigned to them as part of their job duties. Of course, there are likely also circumstances where HR professionals have total discretion on this issue and decide not to take any action to encourage or advocate for interviewer training and might even advocate against it. Despite the importance of the role HR professionals can take to ensure interviewers are trained, there is a lack of research on how HR professionals view interviewer training. This study attempts to fill this void by examining HR professionals' perceptions of interviewer training and the factors that influence those attitudes. …