Case Studies for Interviews

When it comes to interviewing, I tell managers to do what they think works for them. But I don’t assign case studies, not only because I…

When it comes to interviewing, I tell managers to do what they think works for them. But I don’t assign case studies, not only because I think they make for an awful candidate experience, but because I just don’t believe they work.

With all the time and energy invested by candidates on case studies, we should insist on evidence — data — that shows they’re effective. That would come in the form of empirical outcomes demonstrating that the process produces stronger candidates and hires that get better outcomes.

It’s a little difficult to imagine the study that would supply this data. Our real-world experiences with recruiting are so influenced by various psychological biases (especially, I think, selection bias and confirmation bias) that the influence of a case study at the end of the process would be difficult to measure.

Amazon’s somewhat unusual recruiting process is said to be supported by data that shows it gets the outcomes they want. They have the resources and scale to evaluate that.

What we can do as leaders, and I think we should, is look back on our own experiences and ask these two questions:

1) For the best people I’ve hired, would a case study have been really useful in identifying them?
2) For the not-so-great people I hired, would a case study have predicted their weaknesses?

For me the answer is no. You?