A Head For Hiring: The Behavioural Science Of
Research reportAugust 2015headhiring:AforThe behavioural science ofrecruitment and selection
The CIPD is the professional body for HR and peopledevelopment. The not-for-profit organisation championsbetter work and working lives and has been setting thebenchmark for excellence in people and organisationdevelopment for more than 100 years. It has 140,000members across the world, provides thought leadershipthrough independent research on the world of work, andoffers professional training and accreditation for thoseworking in HR and learning and development.
A head for hiring: The behaviouralscience of recruitment and selectionResearch reportContentsAcknowledgements2Foreword3Executive summary4Introduction61 Attracting the people you need72 Designing selection processes and preparing assessors123 Improving the candidate experience19Conclusions21Glossary of terms/behavioural biases24References261A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank the authors of this report, Elizabeth Linos andJoanne Reinhard of the Behavioural Insights Team. We also thank Dr MarkParkinson for providing extensive advice and feedback on the report.About the BehaviouralInsights TeamThe Behavioural Insights Team wasset up in 2010 as the world’s firstgovernment institution dedicatedto the application of behaviouralsciences and is now a socialpurpose company, part owned byits employees, the Cabinet Officeand Nesta, the UK innovationcharity.2About Mark ParkinsonDr Mark Parkinson is anoccupational psychologistexperienced in developingpsychometric tests and profilingteams and individuals. He hasdesigned or advised on assessmentand development processes formany organisations, includingAmnesty International, Gocompare,Waitrose and the United Nations.A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
ForewordBringing talented individualsinto the organisation is one ofthe most important roles ofmanagers and HR professionals.So it is not surprising that therecruitment process has developedinto a sizeable industry, withmarketing and search firms andoccupational psychologists at theforefront of this. At the leadingedge, techniques in attractingemployees into the organisationand assessing candidates havebecome impressively sophisticated.This can be seen in particularwith highly engaging graduaterecruitment campaigns and in theuse of assessment centres.But regardless of the level ofresources and techniques onehas to work with, the recruitmentprocess relies on human decisions,of candidates as well as recruiters.And, as behavioural sciencehas continually highlighted, ourdecision-making is much moreprone to sloppy thinking and biasthan we would like to believe.Behavioural science gives us aunique and valuable perspectivefor people management. As wehave noted before, understandinghuman behaviour lies at the heartof HR and we need to make surethat policies are designed andexecuted in sync with how people’sminds work.3Previously, the CIPD has publishedresearch on applications ofbehavioural science to learning anddevelopment, HR in general and,more recently, pay and reward. Allthis research can be found atcipd.co.uk/behaviouralscienceThis report builds on thisimportant work stream by drawingkey insights from behaviouraleconomics and cognitive andoccupational psychology for thehiring process. It takes a broadlook at recruitment, from outreachactivity and the creation of jobadverts, through to making finalhiring decisions. In doing so, itbrings several key debates up todate, discussing the best availableevidence in this crucial andcontinually evolving field.It is easy to neglect best practicein recruitment, not only because itis tempting to think we don’t havesufficient time, but also becausewe like to make decisions basedon what feels intuitively right.This report sets out to challengeassumptions that underlie this andhelp those involved in directing orexecuting recruitment strategies totake a more robust, evidence-basedapproach. Doing so will help ensureyou really are hiring the best.Jonny Gifford, Research Adviser,CIPDA head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
Executive summaryWe all agree that recruiting andselecting the right people isfundamental to any organisation’ssuccess. How best to do it,however, remains a challengingarea. That’s no surprise: theemployer and potential new hireenter the process with limitedinformation on what to expect andhave few opportunities to learnfrom their behaviour. In addition,the process is inherently highstakes, so stress levels may behigh. Ultimately, any recruitmentand selection process demandscomplex and speedy decisionmaking from both sides.Behavioural science has a lotto say about the way in whichpeople make decisions inthese types of settings. Ourbehaviour does not always fit arational actor model but it is stillsystematic and predictable. Thisreport outlines ways in whichharnessing knowledge abouthow we actually behave can helprecruiters – including externalagents, recruiting managers andHR professionals – to improveoutcomes for the organisationsthey represent.This is an area that benefitsfrom multidisciplinary research– occupational psychologists,economists, neuroscientists andorganisational behaviour expertshave all shed light on parts ofthe recruitment and selectionprocess over the past decades.The goal of this report is to whittledown the existing evidence usinga behavioural lens to practical,actionable insights, clarify wherethe evidence is strongest andsuggest areas for future research.4We start by looking at ways toattract candidates best suited tothe job and the organisation’sbroader needs. While it isparticularly difficult to determinewho the ‘right’ applicant mightbe, there is growing evidencethat how you conduct outreachefforts and how you utilise existingnetworks will determine who findsthemselves in your applicant pool.Recent evidence from behaviouralscience also shows that even smallchanges to how you frame a jobadvert can have a disproportionateeffect on who applies and,subsequently, how they perform onthe job.In the second section we considerthe evidence behind the use of keyselection and assessment tools aswell as the biases and judgementerrors that may occur on theassessor’s side when using thesetools. There are simple tweaksthat can be made to use thetools in a more effective way. Forexample, anonymising or jointlycomparing CVs helps assessorsto concentrate on the informationthat matters. Structured interviewsare shown to be more effectivethan unstructured ones overall,although the difference may notbe as stark for certain types ofinterviewers. The evidence ontests and questionnaires showsthey can be powerful predictorsof performance, but the contentof those tests will determine theirpredictive validity, so they mustbe carefully matched with jobrequirements.does the candidate experienceaffect our ability to decipher whois best, it also can have knock-oneffects on an employer’s brand andtheir ability to attract talent in thefuture. The impact of stress andanxiety during interviews is welldocumented. Since the situationis likely to be inherently stressfulfor an employee, much of theliterature suggests that additionalstress should be avoided.Candidates from disadvantagedor minority groups may beparticularly prone to experiencingpressure, due to negativestereotypes and the sense of beingan outsider. The research here isclear: when someone’s identityas being from a disadvantagedor minority group is highlightedto them, this may negativelyimpact their performance in theassessment process. There aresimple ways to relieve individualsfrom these pressures.We end the report with a callfor more research. This neednot come from academia alone.Shifting away from a model basedon intuition and vague notions of‘fit’, recruiters can build a strongevidence base by building rigorousevaluation into their own practices.By constantly and consistentlytesting their own practices,organisations will not only learnwhat works best, they will makebetter hiring decisions.The third section focuses on thecandidate’s experience duringthe recruitment process. Not onlyA head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
18 tips for better recruitment practiceAttracting candidates1 Take a fresh look at person–organisation fit, considering both currentand aspirational organisational culture.2 Test the wording of your job adverts to see how it affects who applies.3 Personalise your outreach efforts to encourage applicants.4 Make it easy for people who show interest to apply directly.5 Vary where and how you do outreach.6 Push for transparency in outreach even when using networks forrecruitment and selection.7 Systematise your use of social media in recruitment.Assessment8 Group and anonymise CVs when reviewing them.9 Pre-commit to a set of interview questions that are directly related toperformance on the job.10 Focus interviews on collecting information, not making the decision.11 Make sure tests are relevant to the job and fit for purpose.Decision-making12 Include people in hiring decisions who have not been involved inassessing candidates.13 Stick to what the scores tell you for final decisions.Recruitment strategy14 Spread assessments and decisions across days, but keep all otherconditions similar.15 If discussing unconscious bias, emphasise the desired behaviour ofassessors, rather than the problem.16 Evaluate your assessment practices.Candidate experience17 Avoid creating stereotype threat in the assessment process.18 Ask for feedback from rejected and accepted candidates.5A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
Introduction‘Steve Jobsdescribed theprocess of hiringtop talent as “themost importantjob”. Yet, how to findthe right employeeremains a contestedquestion.’‘Our employees are everything.’A quick web search shows thatthousands of companies includethis sentence, or a variation to it,in their mission statements. Onetop-notch engineer is worth ‘300times or more than the average,’claims Alan Eustace, a Google vicepresident of engineering (Tamand Delaney 2005). Steve Jobsdescribed the process of hiring toptalent as ‘the most important job’(Jager and Ortiz 1998). Yet, howto find the right employee remainsa contested question. Comparedwith other areas in organisationalmanagement, relatively littleacademic work has focused onhow different firms approach andshould approach hiring decisions(Oyer and Schaefer 2011).Many see recruiting and selectingthe right employees more asan art than a science. Yet ascientific approach has a lot tosay about how both assessorsand candidates think and makedecisions. Ultimately, this canmark a major change in our abilityto systematically predict goodperformance and how to measurewhat works in a rigorous andquantifiable manner. How do we attract the rightkinds of people?How do we design the besttools for selection and prepareassessors to use them?How can we improve thecandidate experience?In each area, we focus on what weknow works from existing evidencein behavioural science, occupationalpsychology, cognitive psychologyand organisational behaviour andalso what behavioural sciencehas to say about future areas ofresearch. The evidence we presentis not meant to be a comprehensiveliterature review. Rather, we focuson the evidence that has clearpractical implications for recruiters– including external agents, linemanagers and HR personnel – andcan be used to improve aspectsof the recruitment and selectionprocess in as straightforward a wayas possible.Behavioural science, which liesat the intersection of psychologyand economics, focuses on howwe actually behave, as opposed tohow a purely rational actor would.We will argue in this report that byacknowledging and understandingthe systematic biases in decisionmaking of both candidates andrecruiters, we can design bettersystems of recruitment andselection. This report will ask threebroad questions:6A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
1 Attracting the people you needWho are the ‘right types’ ofpeople?Person–organisation fit andperson–job fit (see Box 1)are established predictors ofperformance (Goodman andSvyantek 1999), turnover (seeVerquer et al 2003 for a metaanalysis of 21 studies) and otheremployee outcomes (Boon et al2011). Indeed, much of the theorypredicts that individuals should beattracted to specific organisationsbased on fit (Schneider et al 1995,Sekiguchi 2007). Yet there is someevidence that, for various reasons,this might not play out in practice(Billsberry 2007).When deciding where to apply,individuals may not be able toaccurately assess how well they willfit. There are large informationalasymmetries on both sides, andcandidates may be influencedby a range of factors, includingthe perceived value of a job totheir career, predictions of howsuccessful they would be in gettinga job, cultural norms, previousexperiences, and other personalbeliefs and interests (Eccles 2005).Insights from behavioural scienceshow a number of ways thatthese judgements can be biased.For example, people may beoverconfident in how successfulthey will be (optimism bias), shortsighted when considering howmuch they will value a particular jobor an aspect of a job (myopic biasor temporal discounting), stick tothe sectors or job roles that theyare currently in (status quo bias),consider their own characteristicsmore heavily than the characteristicsof other people who may beapplying for the job (egocentricbias), or overestimate how manypeople work in an industry in totalwhen estimating their probability ofgetting the job (base rate neglect).The sunk cost fallacy may leadthem to choose certain career pathsbecause of foregone costs, such ascollege fees. Therefore, if companieswant to attract people who will fit,they need to leverage what reallyattracts people to a given job andorganisation.However, another complicationarises in how employers defineor make assumptions about whowill fit. As we’ll explore at variouspoints in this report, there is adanger that a focus on person–organisation fit underminesdiversity. Employers selectingonly for people who seem similarto themselves or their colleaguescan put people of a different race,gender, ethnicity or socioeconomicstatus at a disadvantage. This hasimplications not only for fairnessbut also for long-term businessneeds such as innovation andorganisational responsiveness tomarket changes (Herring 2009).Such bias need not be conscious.Affinity bias leads people to likethose who are similar to them orsomeone they know; the mereexposure effect causes individualsto like things they have beenexposed to; and status quo biasmay cause employers to feelmore comfortable to look forcandidates who are similar tocandidates they have hired before.Equally, the endowment effectmay lead managers to value skillsand characteristics of currentstaff disproportionately: possiblyblinding them to the benefits ofother characteristics.Further, while it may be easy toselect for short-term fit, it maybe more difficult to predict whatcharacteristics a workforce needsto have in a few years’ time. Thesolution is not to ignore fit, butdefine it in a way that is meaningfuland beneficial to the organisationlonger term. There are subtleways to avoid misdefining fit, aswe will explore throughout thisreport. Clarifying explicitly whatcharacteristics are most criticalfor your organisation’s culture isthe first step. This could includeBox 1: Who fits the job?Person–organisation fit is usually described in terms of how well a person’s perceptions of the values held by acompany map on to the values that the person holds themselves (Cable and Judge 1996).Person–job fit typically refers to the match between a person’s abilities and personality, and a job’s demands andwhat it offers (Edwards 1991).See glossary page 24 for further definitions of behavioural concepts.7A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection
aspirational values and behavioursthat are largely out of sync with theorganisation’s existing culture. Thus,a second step could be to determinewhether there are positions whereanti-fit is actually desirable. Someorganisations approach the topiceven more boldly: for example,Google challenges its own selectioncriteria by occasionally hiringsomeone who ‘doesn’t fit’ (that is,someone who didn’t meet someof the recruitment criteria) andmeasuring the impact (Bock 2015).Practitioner tip1 – Take a fresh look at person–organisation fitWrite down a definition oforganisation fit as well as person–job fit, explicitly listing employeecharacteristics that the organisationneeds, and commit to onlyevaluating candidates on thesecharacteristics when it comes to‘fit’. Take on board the future visionof the organisation’s culture andconsider ‘anti-fit’: someone whomight meet all the requirementsneeded to perform the job wellbut may not fit with some aspectsof the existing culture. Considerthat for some job roles, yourorganisation may even need this‘anti-fit’, and be willing to challengethe status quo by looking forpeople with unique skills or traits.Improving job advertsThe journey to attract the rightcandidates starts with job adverts.It is easy to see job adverts asa secondary and uninterestingcomponent of the process, butevidence suggests that getting thejob advert right is a key element ofattracting the right kind of people.Although an employer’s brand andreputation will be one of the mostimportant predictors of whethersomeone applies for a job, variationsin job adverts attract different typesof candidates who go on to performdifferently on the job.For example, one study found thatspecific types of words are morelikely to attract female or malecandidates (see Box 2). Evidencealso shows that, on average, womenapply for positions when they meet100% of the required qualificationson a job advert while men are likelyto apply when they meet only 60%of those qualifications, so the listof what counts as ‘essential’ willdramatically affect who applies(Mohr 2014). Even simply includingmore information about how manyother people have applied for ajob can influence application rates(see Box 3).Box 2: Gendered words in job advertsIn a study by Gaucher et al (2011), when a job advert included stereotypically masculine words, women wereless attracted to these jobs compared with when the same job advert was constructed to include stereotypicallyfeminine words. Moreover, both men and women assumed there would be more males in this job role whenthe job advert included masculine words. To illustrate, when an advert for a retail sales manager positionwas constructed to sound masculine, it included sentences such as, ‘We will challenge our employees to beproud of their chosen career’ and ‘You’ll develop leadership skills and learn business principles.’ The feminineworded version of the same job advert included sentences such as, ‘We nurture and support our employees,expecting that they will become committed to their chosen career’ and ‘You will develop interpersonal skills andunderstanding of business.’Box 3: How many people have applied for this post?A recent large field experiment demonstrated that showing the true number of people who have started anonline application in a LinkedIn job advert increased the total number of applications by 3 percentage points,which could lead to thousands of additional applications per day (Gee 2015). In the study, underneath the‘apply’ button, half of the LinkedIn users would see ‘162 people have clicked’, where the number is alwaysthe true number of applicants, while the other half of users would not see this. Interestingly, the effect wasmainly driven by higher numbers of female applicants: there was no significant impact on the number ofmale applicants. This could be explained by women’s tendency to be more
18 tips for better recruitment practice . 6 A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection 7 A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection ‘Steve Jobs described the process of hiring top talent as “the most important job”. .
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