{"id":594,"date":"2012-08-08T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carolinegourlay.wordpress.com\/?p=17"},"modified":"2020-09-04T13:39:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:39:08","slug":"why-you-might-not-want-to-rely-on-gut-feeling-when-hiring-new-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/why-you-might-not-want-to-rely-on-gut-feeling-when-hiring-new-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you might not want to rely on gut feeling when hiring new staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re hiring staff, how quickly do you make up your mind? Are you one of those managers who prides themselves on knowing the minute someone steps through the door whether they\u2019re right for you? You get that \u2018gut feeling\u2019, you just know?<\/p>\n

Well here are some scientifically-grounded reasons why you might want to rethink your reliance on gut feeling.<\/p>\n

We all make judgements about people all the time. It\u2019s human nature. We form impressions based on how someone looks and moves and speaks, on their clothes, their accent \u2013 and that\u2019s before we take any account at all of what they actually say or do.<\/p>\n

Some of these impressions are obvious \u2013 he\u2019s wearing an expensive suit and driving Jag, he\u2019s a successful businessman; she\u2019s got a little bit of dried food on the shoulder of her jacket, she\u2019s got a baby at home and came out in a hurry.<\/p>\n

Some judgements we can articulate a bit, but they\u2019re only half-formed. She\u2019s called Bianca, \"\"<\/a>she\u2019s bubbly and blonde, giggles a lot and her skirt is a little bit too short \u2013 what impression are you forming about her IQ? He\u2019s called Hugo Smythers-Cadwallader, he speaks awfully nicely and seems to ooze confidence \u2013 have you already decided whether you could work with him? So far, you don\u2019t know much about these people, but it\u2019s easy to see how in a selection situation, you (like everyone else) might struggle to see past your own stereotypes of them.<\/p>\n

The judgements to really<\/strong> look out for, though, are the ones you don\u2019t even know you\u2019re making. Maybe you just have a hunch that this person will be brilliant for the job. You can\u2019t put your finger on it. It just feels right. But supposing it\u2019s because some small mannerism of theirs reminds you of that amazing boss you had in 1997? In reality, they may have none of the positive qualities your boss had, but your brain will fill in the gaps so you think they do. And it\u2019s even worse, if they remind you of yourself.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re hiring people, your job is to make judgements about them. You just need to make sure those judgements are based on sound criteria. And in a selection situation, gut feeling may be nothing more than a series of impressions, formed by your unconscious, that you can\u2019t quite articulate.<\/p>\n

If you want evidence of how misleading unconscious impressions can be, take a look at some of these experiments:<\/p>\n

First of all there\u2019s straightforward prejudice. You\u2019d think we\u2019d be past all this by now, but no. In an experiment<\/a> that is deeply depressing in the 21st<\/sup> century,\u00a0groups of physics students were shown a video of a lecture by a physics professor and asked to assess the professor\u2019s level of knowledge. The twist was that they were watching actors, all delivering exactly the same script, but sometimes the actor was male and sometimes female. And guess what? The men were judged to be more knowledgeable and to have a better grasp of the subject than the women. And what\u2019s even sadder, is that female students made the same judgements, though not quite so strongly.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re interviewing a woman for a traditionally male role (or vice versa), chances are you have to overcome some part of your unconscious saying \u201cDoes not compute. Something wrong here\u201d. Incidentally, if you think somehow you\u2019re different, more enlightened, a true believer in equal opportunity and this doesn\u2019t apply to you, have a go at Harvard University\u2019s Implicit Association Test<\/a> and discover your own unconscious biases around gender, race, age, obesity and so on. Trust me, we all have them.<\/p>\n

Next up are those individual differences between people, \u00a0that you know, really, have nothing to do with how well a person can do a job, but they colour your view anyway. Take accent. Experiments have shown that a person\u2019s accent can affect our perceptions of their intelligence<\/a> \u2013 better to say nothing than speak with a Birmingham accent, apparently. Listening to someone with a foreign accent is harder work for our brains,<\/a> with the knock on effect that we find what they say less credible, compared with someone with a local accent saying exactly the same thing. So when interviewing, it becomes incredibly important to listen to what people actually say, rather than the way that they say it.<\/p>\n

There is also a mass of evidence<\/a> showing that better looking people are judged to be better in many other ways \u2013 more sociable, more successful, more competent. Good looking candidates have an advantage when applying for jobs<\/a>, though this may not apply to women applying for traditionally male jobs<\/a>. Beautiful women are apparently too feminine to drive a truck or, heaven forbid, manage the finance department.<\/p>\n

And what about clothing? In an ingenious experiment<\/a>, female violinists filmed wearing concert dresses were judged, by professional musicians, to have played more proficiently than those wearing jeans or nightclub outfits, even though the soundtrack was actually identical in all cases.\u00a0 People who really know how to grade musical performance heard differences which weren\u2019t there. \u00a0Of course, they were primed to look for differences \u2013 they were led to believe they were hearing different people playing. But their brains hooked on to the cues provided by clothing to differentiate between people and turned those into (incorrect) judgements about performance.<\/p>\n

You might make a (not unreasonable) negative judgement about a candidate who dresses inappropriately for an interview. But ask yourself this: which is easier to change \u2013 someone\u2019s wardrobe or their basic skill set?<\/p>\n

So far, we\u2019ve looked at making erroneous judgements about people based on something to do with them \u2013 gender, accent, clothing, attractiveness and so on. Deep down, we probably all know we do this to some extent. The really surprising thing is how easily our brains are fooled by cues in the environment that have nothing to do with the person at all. Weirdly, our subconscious seems to work on metaphors. So, for example, you are more likely to judge someone as being a \u2018warm\u2019 person if you are holding a hot drink<\/a>, rather than a cold drink. You tend to judge a candidate\"\"<\/a>as more serious if you are holding a heavy clipboard<\/a> with their CV on it \u2013 that perception of \u2018weightiness\u2019 has to be coming from somewhere and your brain is busy focusing on the candidate, so that\u2019s where it attributes it.\u00a0 Incidentally, the same research found that you should never try to drive a hard bargain while sitting in a soft chair.<\/p>\n

Given how flawed our impressions of people can be, it\u2019s hardly surprising that the traditional, unstructured job interview is consistently shown to be one of the least reliable methods of selecting someone for a job. \u00a0There are many more reliable methods you could be using, from simple aptitude tests, through in-depth psychological profiling to full-blown assessment centres, where candidates have the opportunity to demonstrate a range of skills in a mock-up of a working environment.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re going to use an interview, at least accept that first impressions are just that \u2013 impressions, not the full picture, probably not accurate. Don\u2019t let your mind join the dots to create the picture you\u2019re expecting to see. And that feeling in your gut? Well that might just be indigestion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re hiring staff, how quickly do you make up your mind? Are you one of those managers who prides themselves on knowing the minute someone steps through the door whether they\u2019re right for you? 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