New interview technique helps pick workers
ANDY MARSHALL
FOR THE CALGARY HERALD
Tom Janz, chairman of the board of Human Performance Systems Inc., has signed an agreement with recruitment consultants Drake International Inc. to market the "Janz system," a scientifically based interviewing and employee-selection program.
"This is a highly significant opportunity," says Janz, a professor of human resources at the University of Calgary.
The linkup will give his system a potential exposure to Drake's 180,000 clients in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Asia. A new joint venture called Drake Performance Technologies has been formed to handle the new sales program with offices in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.
The agreement highlights more than a decade of research and "field testing" of the concept by Janz, who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1977 with a doctorate in industrial psychology and who three years ago published a paperback called Behavior Description Interviewing explaining the system.
"It can be used to hire anyone from the corporate vice president to the dough handler in a bakery," says the 38-year-old Winnipeg native. One of the first customers for the venture has been a major Canadian bank.
Behavior description is based on the belief hiring success rate will improve if it focuses interviews on candidates' accomplishments and how they perform.
Traditional interviews are often based on a "what-would-you-do-if" approach. Behavior description interviews ask "what-did-you-do-when." Interviews follow a format for consistent and objective evaluation.
Janz points to research during the past decade, including a study at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, which suggested stark differences in the accuracy of interviews based on behavior description techniques and traditional "opinion" questions. The latter includes such interrogation as: "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" or "Why do you want this job?"
Because candidates gear answers to what they think the interviewer wants to hear, Janz says organizations "would be better off throwing a dice" to make choices.
Research shows conventional interviews select the best candidate only 19 percent of the time.
Behavior description techniques boost the success rate to 75 percent.
Janz has refined his formats to cover 22 basic job families. The development of personally tailored interview patterns ensure that only candidates with the appropriate personality for a position pass the screening process.
These patterns have now been converted to a computer software program, "saving hours of interview time."
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