One way you may be communicating a lack of cultural competency in yourself and your camp may be in the way you interview job applicants. Traditional interviews based on "gut instinct," evaluation of experience and skills, and focused on hypothetical questions test someone's interviewing skills, but fail to predict future on-the-job behavior.
A 1992 Wall Street Journal study revealed that 70 percent of hiring decisions were made on first impressions made within the first five to ten minutes of an interview. Many of these judgments are based on "physical appearance, ethnic background, affability, and intelligence." Telephone interviewing may actually lead to more accurate hiring decisions because it eliminates, according to Lou Adler in Hire with Your Head, "visual aspects of the first impression."
Those with "proper" social graces -- who are polite, pleasing, and articulate -- "appear more highly competent ... particularly when questions about opinions, experience, or intentions are asked." (D. Cohen, The Talent Edge: A Behavioral Approach to Hiring, Developing, and Keeping Top Performers)
After an initial "intuitive" judgment is made, the interviewer will start "selling" the position to the candidate if she likes her or underselling to a highly qualified candidate about whom she has gotten an initial negative impression (i.e., saying "you would be bored in this position" in the hope that the candidate will self-exclude).
Next post: Bias and hypothetical questions in interviewing.
