Arbeitspapier
Interview sequences and the formation of subjective assessments
Interviewing is a decisive stage of most processes that match candidates to firms and organizations. This paper studies how and why a candidate's interview outcome depends on the other candidates interviewed by the same evaluator. We use large-scale data from high-stakes admission and hiring processes, where candidates are quasi-randomly assigned to evaluators and time slots. We find that the individual assessment decreases as the quality of other candidates assigned to the same evaluator increases. The influence of the previous candidate stands out, leading to a negative autocorrelation in evaluators' votes of up to 40% and distorting final admission and hiring decisions. Our findings are in line with a contrast effect model where evaluators form a benchmark through associative recall. We assess potential changes in the design of interview processes to mitigate contrasting against the previous candidate.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Discussion Paper ; No. 497
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
Demand and Supply of Labor: General
Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
- Subject
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hiring
interviewing
contrast effect
memory
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Radbruch, Jonas
Schiprowski, Amelie
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition
- (where)
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München und Berlin
- (when)
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2024
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Radbruch, Jonas
- Schiprowski, Amelie
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition
Time of origin
- 2024
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