Structured interviews: moving beyond mean validity…

Abstract

As interview researchers, we were of course delighted by the focal authors’ finding that structured interviews emerged as the predictor with the highest mean validity in their meta-analysis (Sackett et al., 2023, Table 1). Moreover, they found that structured interviews not only provide strong validity but do so while having significantly lower impact on racial groups than other top predictors such as biodata, knowledge, work samples, assessment centers, and GMA (see their Figure 1). Unfortunately, it also appears that structured interviews have the highest variability in validity (i.e., .42 +/− .24) among top predictors (Sackett et al., 2023; Table 1). Such a level of inconsistency is concerning and warrants closer examination. Given that the vast majority of interview research (including our own) has focused on understanding and improving mean validity as opposed to reducing variability, we advocate for a fundamental shift in focus. Specifically, we call for more research on identifying factors that can induce variability in validity and, subsequently, on finding ways to minimize their influence. Our commentary will highlight several prominent factors that have the potential to contribute significantly to the inconsistency in validity. We group them according to three major components of the interview process: interview format/methodology, applicant cognitive processes, and contextual factors.