Why “Group” Interviews Don’t Work

A good friend of mine who is a very experienced sales executive called yesterday to share a great story.  He was interviewing for a position and went back for the second interview only to be told he would would be interviewing with 25 people simultaneously.  It was a medium-sized company and they informed him that he needed to “pass muster” with all of the key players in the company.

Unfortunately, the mob mentality is not good when it comes to choosing employees.

Many of you will defend the practice of group interviews (although I hope no one will defend 25 people at once) insisting on the real benefits.  Let’s look at your arguments.

“”We get more information” is one argument I hear all the time.  My response is that you still only have one questions being asked at a time.  There is only one answer being given at a time.  If anything, you have opened the door for multiple interpretations of the same information.  It really is an opportunity to create ambiguity instead of clarity.  You are NOT getting more information by having multiple people in the room.

“The more opinions we have, the better our decisions” is another argument.  The problem once again is “more opinions”.  You really don’t want opinions.  You want informed judgments based on data.  But, you are not getting more data by having multiple people in the room.  It is much better to have a few informed judgments from individuals who have had the opportunity to go “deep” in their questioning to get real data.  This is accomplished with a series of one-on-one interviews.

“Others can observe body language and reactions while someone else is questioning” is still another argument.  There is certainly merit to the fact that you are so busy figuring out what you are going to ask next that you do miss some reactions.  This problem goes away, if you are prepared with your questions and trained to ask them in a way that allows you to listen.  And, how many of us are trained to effectively interpret body language?  It is way too easy to get off track and make a mistake with this approach.

Now let’s look at a few of my “downside” arguments for not conducting group interviews.  First, you put the candidate under extreme pressure.  How many of you would like to be grilled by 25 people at the same time?  Increasing a candidate’s anxiety level never improves the quality of data you get.

Trying to control multiple people’s input is very difficult.  Who takes the lead?  Who follows up?  When is it OK to interrupt with a follow-up questions?  Who decides when a subject has been exhausted an it is time to move on?  What are the politics between the people in the room?  Should you interrupt the boss?  I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

Finally. what happens if 24 people vote yest and 1 person votes no?  How do you resolve this situation.  Hiring is not a democracy.

It makes so much more sense to have 2-3-4 well-trained interviewers with over-lapping focus conduct a series of one-on-one interviews.  Afterward, they can compare notes about the data each uncovered helping to make an informed decision.

Although group interview might seem like a good idea on the surface, once you understand the dynamics of an effective hiring process it is simple to see they are not very effective.

As always, I welcome your comments.

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