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7.6 The limitations of interviews 
Interviews are criticised, however, because 
they fail to provide accurate predictions
of how a person will 
perform in the job, partly because of the nature of interviews, partly because of errors of judgement by 
interviewers. 
Problem 
Comment 
Scope
An interview is too 
brief
to 'get to know' candidates in the kind of depth 
required to make an accurate prediction of work performance. 
Artificiality
An interview is an 
artificial situation
: candidates may be on their best 
behaviour or, conversely, so nervous that they do not do themselves justice. 
Neither situation reflects what the person is really like. 
The halo and horns 
effects
The tendency for people to make an 
initial general judgement
about a person 
(either positive or negative) based on a single obvious attribute, such as how they 
are dressed or their size. This single attribute will colour later perceptions, and 
make an interviewer mark the person up or down on every other factor in their 
assessment. 
Contagious bias
The interviewer changes the behaviour of the applicant by 
suggestion
. The 
applicant might be led by the wording of questions, or non-verbal cues from 
the interviewer, to change what they are doing or saying in response. 
Stereotyping
Stereotyping groups together people who are assumed to share certain 
characteristics (women, say, or vegetarians), then attributes certain traits to the 
group as a whole. It then assumes that each individual member of the 
supposed group will possess that trait. 
Incorrect assessment
Qualitative factors such as motivation, honesty or integrity are very difficult to 
define and assess objectively. 
Logical error
For example, an interviewer might decide that a young candidate who has held 
two or three jobs in the past for only a short time will be unlikely to last long in 
any job. (This isn't necessarily the case.)