The Homa Files

According to an HBR article “In Hiring, Algorithms Beat Instinct” …

Studies of applicant evaluations shows that a simple equation outperforms human decisions by at least 25%.

And, the effect holds in any situation with a large number of candidates, regardless of whether the job is on the front line, in middle management, or (yes) inthe C~suite.

Why is that?

* * * * *

According to the researchers, “ The problem is that people are easily distracted by things that might be only marginally relevant and that they use the information inconsistently.

They can be thrown off-course by such inconsequential bits of data as applicants’ compliments or or remarks on arbitrary topics.”

In other words, they sub-consciously under-weight hard data and taint a potentially objective process with gut-feel subjectivity.

What to do?

Lay out clear objective hiring criteria and marshall data against the critieria.

Then, go ahead add some subjective insight from the interviews, but close the loop … go back after the interview and mesh the subjective insights against the hard data.

Don’t just toss out the in-going criteria and hard data.

#HomaFiles

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This entry was posted on October 15, 2015 at 6:59 am and is filed under Algorithms - algoritmic applications, Careers & Interviewing, HR - Human Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.