How quickly do interviewers reach decisions? An examination of interviewers' decision-making time across applicants

Abstract

We develop and test a model of factors that may account for how quickly interviewers make decisions about job applicants. Data were collected from 166 interviewers who interviewed applicants (N = 691) at a university career centre. Results revealed that interviewers who possessed more experience and higher interviewing efficacy tended to make quicker decisions, as did interviewers who engaged in more rapport building. In contrast, use of question consistency (a key element of structured interviews) tended to increase the time interviewers took to make their decisions. Consistent with cognitive load theory, interview decision time had a curvilinear relationship with applicant order. Specifically, decision time increased as interviewers progressed through the first few applicants, but after about four applicants, decision time reached an asymptote and then began to decrease as interviewers evaluated additional applicants. These findings have implications for the design of future interview research (e.g., accounting for intra-interviewer changes in decision-making time across applicants), as well as for the use of interviews in organizations (e.g., designing interviews and interview schedules that discourage quick decisions).