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Hiring
the right staff
Ivanka Menken
Page 3
In 1919, Alfred Binet, the father of intelligence
testing, first tried interviews as a means of assessing
the capabilities of candidates. He had three
schoolteachers test the same five children to assess
their intelligence. When Binet asked the teachers
whether they were confident of their assessments,
they responded that they were. There was only one
problem: they disagreed widely about the students’
intelligence levels. Binet then abandoned the
interview in favor of more rigorous testing.
During WorldWar II, large-scale decisions had to be
made about who to put where. The time-honored
military solution of saying, “Hey you, go there” did
not work any longer. When the same applicants were
interviewed by several classification officers, they
could not agree on where the applicant ranked. In one
case, an applicant was ranked first by one officer and
fifty-seventh by another. When several interviewers
cannot agree on ranking, we have to assume that
some of them err in judgment.
Admiral Rickenbacker had a number of interesting
little tests for applicants, and it was because of him
that the stress interview became popular. He would
have the interviewee’s chair nailed to the floor and
then watch the applicant try to obey his command
to move the chair a little closer. After the interview
was over, he would direct them to the door—only,
the door opened into a closet. Once again, he would
evaluate their reaction.