The defendant won the case against Bacon by claiming that in the interview the applicant did not present himself in a professional manner and therefore was not hired. In many court cases this has been a successful defense against claims of discrimination. R eliability of a selection procedure relates to it's ability to reach the same conclusions under different circumstances. The very nature of the common employment interview shows that this is not the case. No one acts exactly the same when interacting with all people.
Few interviewers ask the same questions of every applicant.
V alidity is the other side of the coin. There are several types of validity that can be looked at in relation to employment interviews. Criterion-related validity is the most accepted type of validity in court cases. This is the relationship between the candidates rating on the interview and their later performance have a high coorilation. This is often called predictive validity because if you can prove it works you can predict employee performance based on their pre-employment scores.