My own experience strongly suggests to me that this claim is inane … it would only follow if you believe yourself to be no more competent than the average hiring manager in such a body, or in the papers you reference.
What evidence do you have that you are better than average?
My personal experience from interviewing many, many candidates for a large company suggests that interviewing is crucial
I have heard of one job interview that I felt constituted a useful tool that could not effectively be replaced by resume examination and statistical analysis. A friend of mine got a job working for a company that provides mathematical modeling services for other companies, and his “interview” was a several hour test to create a number of mathematical models, and then explaining to the examiner in layman’s terms how and why the models worked.
Most job interviews are really not a demonstration of job skills and aptitude, and it’s possible to simply bullshit your way through them. On the other hand, if you have a simple and direct way to test the competence of your applicants, then by all means use it.
I’m most familiar with interviews for programming jobs, where an interview that doesn’t ask the candidate to demonstrate job-specific skills, knowledge and aptitude is nearly worthless. These jobs are also startlingly prone to resume distortion that can make vastly different candidates look similar, especially recent graduates.
Asking for coding samples and calling previous employers, especially if coupled with a request for code solving a new (requested) problem, could potentially replace interviews. However, judging the quality of code still requires a person, so that doesn’t seem to really change things to me.
I can confirm that such a “job interview” is not common in medicine. The potential employer generally relies on the credentialing process of the medical establishment. Most physicians, upon completing their training, pass a test demonstrating their ability to regurgitate the teachers’ passwords, and are recommended to the appropriate certification board as “qualified” by their program director; to do otherwise would reflect badly on the program. Also, program directors are loath to remove a resident/fellow during advanced training because some warm body must show up to do the work, or the professor himself/herself might have to fill in. It is difficult to find replacements for upper level residents; the only common reason such would be available is dismissal/transfer from another program. Consequently, the USA turns out physicians of widely varied skill levels, even though their credentials are similar. In surgical specialities, it is not unusual for a particularly bright individual with all the passwords but very poor technical skills to become a surgical professor.
My mother has told me an anecdote about a family friend who was a surgeon who had a former student call him while conducting an operation because he couldn’t remember what to do.
My mother has told me an anecdote about a family friend who was a surgeon who had a former student call him while conducting an operation because he couldn’t remember what to do.
The (rumored) student has my respect. I would expect most surgeons to have too much of an ego to admit to that doubt rather than stumble ahead full of hubris. It would be comforting to know that your surgeon acted as if (as opposed to merely believing that) he cared more about the patient than the immediate perception of status loss. (I wouldn’t care whether that just meant his thought out anticipation of future status loss for a failed operation overrode his immediate social instincts.)
That isn’t an interview, it’s a test. Tests are extremely useful. IQ tests are an excellent predictor of job performance, maybe the best one available. Regardless, IQ tests are usually de facto illegal in the US due to disparate impact.
I put interview in quotes because they called it an interview. Speaking broadly enough, all interviews are tests, but most are unstructured and not very good at examining the relevant predictor variables. All tests are of course not necessarily interviews, but the part where they had applicants explain their processes in layman’s terms might qualify it, at least if you’re generous with your definitions.
Of course, it’s certainly unclear if not outright incorrect to call it an interview, but that was their choice; possibly they felt that subjecting applicants to a “test” rather than an “interview” projected a less positive image.
What evidence do you have that you are better than average?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
I have heard of one job interview that I felt constituted a useful tool that could not effectively be replaced by resume examination and statistical analysis. A friend of mine got a job working for a company that provides mathematical modeling services for other companies, and his “interview” was a several hour test to create a number of mathematical models, and then explaining to the examiner in layman’s terms how and why the models worked.
Most job interviews are really not a demonstration of job skills and aptitude, and it’s possible to simply bullshit your way through them. On the other hand, if you have a simple and direct way to test the competence of your applicants, then by all means use it.
I’m most familiar with interviews for programming jobs, where an interview that doesn’t ask the candidate to demonstrate job-specific skills, knowledge and aptitude is nearly worthless. These jobs are also startlingly prone to resume distortion that can make vastly different candidates look similar, especially recent graduates.
Asking for coding samples and calling previous employers, especially if coupled with a request for code solving a new (requested) problem, could potentially replace interviews. However, judging the quality of code still requires a person, so that doesn’t seem to really change things to me.
That’s what I think of, too, when I hear the phrase “job interview”. Is this not typical outside fields like programming?
I can confirm that such a “job interview” is not common in medicine. The potential employer generally relies on the credentialing process of the medical establishment. Most physicians, upon completing their training, pass a test demonstrating their ability to regurgitate the teachers’ passwords, and are recommended to the appropriate certification board as “qualified” by their program director; to do otherwise would reflect badly on the program. Also, program directors are loath to remove a resident/fellow during advanced training because some warm body must show up to do the work, or the professor himself/herself might have to fill in. It is difficult to find replacements for upper level residents; the only common reason such would be available is dismissal/transfer from another program. Consequently, the USA turns out physicians of widely varied skill levels, even though their credentials are similar. In surgical specialities, it is not unusual for a particularly bright individual with all the passwords but very poor technical skills to become a surgical professor.
My mother has told me an anecdote about a family friend who was a surgeon who had a former student call him while conducting an operation because he couldn’t remember what to do.
The (rumored) student has my respect. I would expect most surgeons to have too much of an ego to admit to that doubt rather than stumble ahead full of hubris. It would be comforting to know that your surgeon acted as if (as opposed to merely believing that) he cared more about the patient than the immediate perception of status loss. (I wouldn’t care whether that just meant his thought out anticipation of future status loss for a failed operation overrode his immediate social instincts.)
That isn’t an interview, it’s a test. Tests are extremely useful. IQ tests are an excellent predictor of job performance, maybe the best one available. Regardless, IQ tests are usually de facto illegal in the US due to disparate impact.
I put interview in quotes because they called it an interview. Speaking broadly enough, all interviews are tests, but most are unstructured and not very good at examining the relevant predictor variables. All tests are of course not necessarily interviews, but the part where they had applicants explain their processes in layman’s terms might qualify it, at least if you’re generous with your definitions.
Of course, it’s certainly unclear if not outright incorrect to call it an interview, but that was their choice; possibly they felt that subjecting applicants to a “test” rather than an “interview” projected a less positive image.
I don’t think it’s fair, as his job is not being an interviewer, but perhaps hiring smart people we can benefit from.