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Emerald Article: A brief history of the selection interview: may the next 100 years be more fruitful M. Ronald Buckley, Amy Christine Norris, Danielle S. Wiese

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To cite this document: M. Ronald Buckley, Amy Christine Norris, Danielle S. Wiese, (2000),"A brief history of the selection interview: may the next 100 years be more fruitful", Journal of Management History (Archive), Vol. 6 Iss: 3 pp. 113 - 126 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005329 Downloaded on: 03-04-2012 References: This document contains references to 53 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 3878 times.

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A brief history of the selection A brief history of the selection interview interview: may the next 100 years be more fruitful
University of Oklahoma, Division of Management, Norman, OK, USA
Keywords Interviews, Analysts, Theory, Human resource development Abstract Over the past 100 years, the interview has received much attention. It is generally agreed that the interview is modest in terms of reliability or validity. In spite of this, it will continue to be used as a selection tool. Research has shown that structured interviews are more reliable than unstructured interviews. It has also been suggested that group interviews and extensive interviewer training modestly improve interview validity. Little theoretical development has occurred since these ideas were presented in the 1940s. At the risk of denigrating research contributions on the interview process, the past 20 years of interview research have lacked substantial theoretical contributions and the creativity necessary to make the interview perform the function it is designed to perform identify the best person for the job.

M. Ronald Buckley, Amy Christine Norris and Danielle S. Wiese

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Received May 1997 Revised October 1997

The selection interview An examination of the last 100 years of research on the selection interview yields a number of repeating themes and demonstrates the importance of specific historical events on the focus of the research. The structure, validity, reliability, and predictive power of the interview have been investigated, analyzed, and reexamined through the eyes of a myriad different researchers. Historical events have impacted the focus of research efforts. Gifted scholars (from management, psychology, sociology and public administration) and field practitioners have been responsible for the evolution of the interview process and have paved the way for new and creative ideas pertaining to interview research and practice. Over the past century, the interview has been criticized, praised, structured, enlarged, tested, recorded and analyzed. Through all of this, the interview has remained the most popular and widely used selection tool in the selection process. While the future of interview research may be unclear, the continued presence and importance of the interview are guaranteed. Early research efforts Numerous types of literature about the selection interview began to appear in the early part of the twentieth century. Owing to the fact that the interview was the sole ``scientific'' selection instrument available, it quickly became the most commonly used tool for selecting and promoting employees. Instruction books telling employers how to interview and articles containing advice for potential job applicants also became popular. In 1915, the effectiveness of the interview

Journal of Management History, Vol. 6 No. 3, 2000, pp. 113-126. # MCB University Press, 1355-252X

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was challenged after a study showed that interviewers' abilities to identify successful applicants were problematic (Eder et al., 1989). Further evidence from a study done by Hollingworth (1922) reinforced the idea that the interview was not a flawless selection process. In his study, Hollingworth found that the rankings given by evaluators of a pool of candidates showed great variability. Some candidates' rankings even ranged from the very best to the very worst. The effectiveness of interviewers was challenged again by Moss in his 1931 study about the ability of interviewers to predict the success or failure of medical school students. When the students' actual performances were compared with the predictions from the interviews, the results were both positive and negative. If the interviewers' advice would have been followed, 33 percent of the students who failed would have been eliminated. On the other hand, 23 percent of the students who received average grades of 85 percent or higher would have been eliminated. Fueled by these findings, researchers sought to uncover exactly what the interview could predict, if anything. In 1927, Charters found that characteristics, such as appearance and manners, likeability, attitudes, outside interests and hobbies, forcefulness, brightness in conversation, and disagreeable mannerisms, could all be observed and rated in an interview. However, he also suggested that other qualities, including dependability, honesty, persistence, and loyalty could not be ascertained during the interview process. Charters (1927) concluded that traits which do not actually function or enter specifically into the behavior of the interviewee during the interview cannot be judged with any accuracy. He suggested that the interview may do little more than report the ability of the candidate to engage in conversation. This was reiterated by Buckley and Eder (1988b) when they suggested that the interview should only be used to evaluate those skills which could be observed in the interview. The search for the perfect structure New concepts about how interviews should be conducted surfaced in 1929 and 1930. O'Rourke (1929), who for many years was the director of test research for the United States Civil Service Commission, interviewed Civil Service candidates and concluded that ``genuine problem situations'' should be used in interviews to predict how the applicants would react in work situations. He developed a series of steps to ensure that interviews would capture valuable information from candidates and represent real work situations. O'Rourke's first step toward conducting a successful interview was to develop problems specifically designed to bring out the desired qualities in the candidates. The next step was to construct these problems so as to ``insure an adequate sampling of the qualifications being measured'' (p. 429). O'Rourke then suggested creating a uniform method of presenting the problems and devising a method of making complete records of the oral examination. His last two steps to an effective interview included developing a method of evaluating the

interviews and determining a fixed standard of rating. This procedure ensured A brief history of that interviewers had the tools they needed to be successful and that interviews the selection conducted by different interviewers yielded similar results (reliability). interview This trend to devise an improved interview structure continued into the next decade. In 1941, Travers noted that all interviews should include a practical test of some kind. This built upon the pioneering work of Bingham and Moore 115 (1931) and resulted in the work of Mandell (1964), which provided guidance for structuring and conducting an interview. Travers stated that a practical test situation, in which the interviewee or a small group of interviewees was asked to perform a specific task, was ``equally good at measuring personal characteristics, carefulness, attitude, ability to follow directions, and selfconfidence as the interview'' (p. 129). He also asserted that the practical tests were superior because the candidates were more relaxed and likely to perform as they would in actual job situations. This concept of standardized interview formats was gaining popularity in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Adams and Smeltzer (1936) attempted to construct a standardized interview record form in 1936, which included such categories as physical characteristics, personality, and general aptitude for work. Hovland and Wonderlic (1939) also supported the use of standardized interviews. They developed the Diagnostic Interviewer's Guide in an attempt to standardize the interview process and create a system for quantitative recording. Their research led them to conclude in 1939 that standardized interviews were the most effective types of interviews and should include questions about ``work history, family history, social history, and personal history'' (p. 537). Attempts to measure and improve reliability and validity In the 1940s, wartime made large military samples available and allowed numerous tests of reliability and validity to be conducted. Two different studies, one done by Dunlap and Wantman (1947) and another by Newman et al. (1947), dealt with interviewers' attempts to predict the success of World War II enlistees in flight school. In the first study, a board of interviewers was asked to study applicants' Personal History Inventories, which included information about their work, health, and personal history, and then to interview the applicants. Following the 25-minute interviews, the interviewers attempted to predict the applicants' ability to be successful in flight school. When these predictions were compared to the results from the flight school years later, the overall prediction rates were little better than chance. In this case, the interview was not a good predictor of success. Newman et al. (1947) found that ``quantitative interview ratings may be obtained with reliabilities as high as those of personality tests . . . higher, in fact, than the reliabilities of many such tests'' (p. 108). They qualified this statement by establishing specific guidelines that an interview must meet in order to be reliable. These guidelines were as follows:

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(1) adequate, relevant, and objective information concerning the candidate must be available to the interviewer; (2) the demands of the situation with respect to which the interview is made must be carefully defined and fully understood by all interviewers; (3) the interviewers must have met with each other in advance and arrived at common standards and criteria of evaluation (p. 108). If these guidelines were not followed, the reliability of the interview declined. Two new interview techniques surfaced in 1947 that seemed to improve the predictive power of the interview. Brody (1947) was the first to suggest the use of a group interview, in which six to 12 participants interacted in a group discussion and the interviewers took on passive roles as listeners and observers. He claimed that important attributes such as ``appearance and manner, speech attitude toward the group, leadership, contribution to group performance, and scientific approach'' (p. 170) could be identified in a group interview. He cited the following advantages of group interviews: (1) a chance to observe candidates for long periods of time; (2) required no question-asking skills from the interviewer; (3) provided information concerning the attitude of one candidate toward another; and (4) measured leadership skills of the candidates (p. 173). Perhaps the most significant result of the group interview was the final advantage cited by Brody because leadership, more than the other factors, was thought to be a good indicator of job success. Another new interviewing technique was advocated by McMurray (1947). He promoted the patterned interview which was a technique that required extensive training for the interviewers. This technique necessitated that the interviewer be ``selected carefully to be sure he is emotionally adjusted and has adequate intelligence'' (p. 31) to perform an effective interview. Any kind of training for interviewers was beneficial to the interview and the complex training that McMurray called for seemed to be quite effective. The quest for positive attributes Near the middle of the twentieth century, researchers began to accept the notion that the interview was popular despite findings of low predictive power and reliability. Wagner (1949) summarized the sentiment of researchers with this statement:
The interview remains popular as a selection procedure despite its questionable reliability. Even if the interview were thoroughly repudiated, it probably would not be abandoned; there seems to be a certain human curiosity which can be satisfied in no other way than by seeing the man in the flesh (p. 42).

Owing to the realization that the interview was an inevitable part of the selection process, researchers began searching for its strengths. Rundquist

(1947) was one of the first to identify positive attributes of the interview. His A brief history of research showed that, when interviewers were asked to rate only a single trait, the selection they could do so quite effectively. He also showed that sociability could be interview measured well through an interview. Putney (1947) uncovered an additional reason to support the use of the interview as a valid selection tool. He found that the ``simple decision utility'' (p. 145) of the interview was more impressive 117 than the predictive power of the interview. In a study of the assignments made by the Army Air Forces Aircraft Warning Unit Training Center, he researched two groups of students: those who had been interviewed and those who had not been interviewed. Of those assigned by the interviewing, 84 percent graduated in the prescribed time, while only 29 percent of those who were not interviewed completed the same task. Putney concluded that the mere fact that a candidate had been interviewed made that candidate more likely to achieve an academic rating of ``excellent'' and to graduate on time. Analyzing the parts The next decade brought about intense analysis of all aspects of the interview. Researchers measured question response times, recorded gestures and body language, analyzed the information asked for and given, and manipulated interview settings. Daniels and Otis (1950) were the first to record interviews on audiotape in 1950. They took a sample of 60 interviews conducted in the employment offices of eight companies. For the first time, they were able to analyze interviews without intruding on the process. They used the recorded interviews to do content analysis and determined that the interviewer controlled the length of the interview but the interviewee had more control over the total number of exchanges during the interview. In similar studies, W.J. Dipboye (1954) and Robinson (1955) divided the interviews that they observed into measurable units, including the time the interviewer spoke, the number of questions asked, and the average response time. Chappel took the analyzation process one step further by developing a machine called the Interaction Chronograph that measured the speaking times of interviewer and interviewee, as well as silence times (Matarazzo et al., 1956). These measures could be compiled and compared to determine the average times for interviews in different industries or compare the times of successful and unsuccessful interviewees. In one of the most cited selection interview research studies of all time, Springbett (1958) found that interviewers make their decisions during the first few minutes of the interview. ``The appearance of the applicant and his application form provide information in the first two or three minutes of the interview which decisively affects the final outcome in 85 percent of the cases'' (p. 22). Because he was heavily influenced by the candidate's physical appearance and application form, the interviewer used the interview primarily to search for negative evidence about the candidate, according to Springbett. This study, which comprised one experiment in a military setting and one in an

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industrial setting, has never been replicated, but still appears today in literature about the interview (see Buckley and Eder, 1988, for a review of that research which gainsays the research of Springbett and his colleagues). More support for the interview In 1957, a survey of 236 firms showed that 99 percent of the responding firms interviewed applicants before hiring. This was a 6 percent increase from a 1930 survey (Ulrich and Trumbo, 1965). In the late 1950s, the interview was being used by more firms than ever before and it was receiving increased academic support. Bonneau found that the interview was a good predictor of a teacher's ability to establish rapport with students. His study, unfortunately, revealed little about how the interview was generally applied as a selection tool. Both Holt and Loevinger, in 1958 and 1959 respectively, found that likeability could be effectively measured through an interview. Holt (1958) performed two predictive studies as an effort to improve the methods by which medical men were selected for specialty training by the Menninger School of Psychiatry. His results showed that the ratings of liking by the judges correlated highly with their predictive ratings, but even more highly with the supervisors' evaluations, and especially peers' evaluations. While these correlations differed from Holt's initial clinical prediction, he called them ``affective- perhaps intuitive-reactions to the same data'' (p. 10). More research in support of the interview surfaced in 1954. A study done by Anderson (1954) supported the validity of the interview. His research, which involved the selection of doctoral candidates at NYU, showed that ``the validity achieved from a 30-minute interview was from 0.23 to 0.27 higher than the validity obtained from non-interview data, such as essay and short answer tests'' (p. 203). Perhaps the interview did, indeed, have some redeeming qualities. The era of Webster The 1960s showed the birth of ``camps'' or groups of researchers engaged in programmatic activity, typically associated with a particular geographic area or institution'' (Eder et al., 1989, p. 24). These camps were often very technical and focused on a particular aspect of the interview. Sydiaha (1961) focused his research on the role that stereotypes, or standards against which all applicants are matched for suitability, are used in interviews to make hiring decisions. Huse (1962), of the Raytheon Corporation, rejected the interview as the best predictor of performance. Huse's research involved rating 107 first-level supervisors from 31 companies. He used a variety of paper-and-pencil tests, projective tests, and interviews conducted by trained psychologists to test the validity of the interview. Huse concluded that ``the relative validity of predictor ratings based on complete data, including tests, reports of projectives, and the interview was no higher than that for psychometric tests'' (p. 204). Perhaps the best known research from this period is that of Webster (1964) and his graduate students. In 1964, they attempted to remake the interview by examining the

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interviewers' decision-making process. Webster advised interviewers or those A brief history of training interviewers to adhere to the following guidelines, ``not necessarily to the selection lead to more valid selection'' but to begin the improvement process: interview
The guidelines were as follows: control the order of input of information to the interviewer; develop an accurate picture of the kind of person desired in a particular job and train the interviewer to accept this stereotype; force an increase in the time required to reach a decision about an applicant; and recognize that bias affecting the decision for or against an applicant may operate from the beginning of the interview or may develop during the interview depending upon whether one feels at ease with the candidate (p. 22).

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Webster's strategy redirected research for the next two decades and was responsible for the methodological shift in emphasis from qualitative to quantitative analysis. More research about the interviewer came about after Webster's studies. Ulrich and Trumbo (1965) argued that interviewers were faced with an impossible task when they were asked to evaluate candidates. After reviewing current literature, they concluded that, due to limitations on time and information, ``the interviewer's task should be limited to evaluating a single trait'' (p. 113). Carlson (1967) did a study contrasting the abilities of inexperienced and experienced interviewers to select successful candidates. He found that inexperienced interviewers did not have less reliable interviews, but they were more likely to accept bad applicants when they were faced with quotas. The stress of the quota, concluded Carlson, impaired the judgment of the inexperienced interviewers. Another interesting finding about the interviewer came from London and Hakel (1974). They found that stereotypes used by the interviewer to judge the applicant diminished as the evaluation of the applicant continued. They also found that ``while interviewers may share the same ideal applicant stereotype, their differing experiences may have produced differing expectations about the typical applicant'' (p. 157). Both the ideal candidate stereotype and the typical candidate stereotype have an impact on the interviewer's perception of the candidate. For example, according to London and Hakel, an interviewer who expects to find a high caliber applicant gives applicants higher ratings. Examining the legal and social aspects of the interview In the USA, the passing of the Equal Employment Act of 1972 and the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, coupled with the strong enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act Title VII, turned the prevailing research focus to the legal and social correlates of the interview. ``Interview researchers had a new outcome variable to address beyond reliability and validity, namely, whether the employment interview gives unwarranted advantages to members of one group over another'' (Eder et al., 1989, p. 26). Interestingly, an oral interview of any kind is, by definition, a test and must meet the same fairness requirements as other types of tests. Krefting and Brief (1977) found that handicapped individuals were given favorable evaluations. In their study, 145 junior and senior university students were asked to estimate a number of factors about

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potential applicants for a clerical position. The students were supplied with information about the applicants' past work experience, health, and references. Disability was manipulated through the application form, references, and health report. A total of 73 students considered disabled applicants and 72 students considered non-disabled applicants. The results of the study indicated that ``disability did not have a significant effect on any of the following evaluation criteria: ability, potential for quality output, potential for quantity output, potential for absenteeism, potential for tardiness, potential for getting along with others, and overall ratings'' (p. 677). The disabled applicants were, however, perceived as less healthy and as exhibiting less potential for promotion. They were also evaluated as having a higher work motivation and as more likely to become a long-term employee. While this study demonstrated that certain biases against disabled applicants existed, evidence of unfair discrimination was not present. Gender discrimination was also a very popular topic for researchers. In a study conducted by Dipboye et al. (1975), 30 undergraduate males and 30 male professionals screened resumes of fictional applicants for a fictional position (p. 16). The results of this study showed that subjects perceived male applicants as ``more suitable'' (p. 42) than female applicants. While this project did not involve an interview process, the researchers sought to examine the basis on which interviewers may discriminate among job candidates' resumes in the screening evaluation phase of the selection process. Later, Rosen and Mericle (1979) found that evaluators who rated the resumes of male and female applicants offered male applicants higher starting salaries than the females with comparable resume evaluations. Women were also shown to be discriminated against in a study of attractive and unattractive applicants conducted by Heilman and Saruwatari (1979). This study involved 23 male and 22 female college students who were asked to evaluate candidates for two different positions, one managerial and one clerical. The students were provided information about the applicants' job experience and educational background and a picture of the applicant. When the results of the evaluations were examined, Heilman and Saruwatari found that ``attractiveness consistently proved to be an advantage for men, but was an advantage for women only when seeking a non-managerial position'' (p. 360). Attractiveness actually worked against females' attempts to get managerial positions. There was no evidence, however, of discrimination based solely in gender. ``No support was found for the prediction that subjects would generally evaluate male applicants more favorably than female ones'' (p. 367). After reviewing the efforts of his fellow researchers, Arvey (1979) summed up the analysis of social impacts of the interview with this statement: ``available evidence left it unclear whether interviewers discriminated on the basis of race, age, or handicap, but it was clear that women were at risk in employment interview situations'' (p. 736).

Revisiting structure and measurements A brief history of The 1980s brought a revival of researcher interest in the best way to structure the selection an interview and in determining what exactly the interview could measure. interview Latham et al. (1980) concluded that interviews based on ``overt behavior'' were more valid than those that focused on less observable applicant characteristics. Arvey et al. (1987) applied this theory to job behaviors and found that 121 interviews that did not measure relevant job behaviors were less valid than interviews that did. In 1986, Schneider and Schmitt concluded that interviews were best at assessing ``applicant interests, motivation or affinity for a particular job''. They also pointed out that these characteristics may have little or nothing to do with the candidates' productivity. Personal qualities such as ``oral communication, decisiveness, and manner of self-preservation'' are what is detected in the interview according to Zedeck et al. (1983). The studies that dealt with the structure of the interview all advocated a more structured process. In separate studies in 1982 and 1985, Janz and Orpen supported the use of ``patterned behavior interviews''. They claimed that when interviewers were adequately trained in patterned interview techniques, the interviews they conducted were more valid than unstructured interviews. Latham and Saari also supported the idea that the unstructured interview was ineffective. In their 1984 study, they found that ``situational interviewing yielded consistently superior predictive validities''. Other researchers, including McDaniel et al. (1988) and Wiesner and Cronshaw (1988), also found that structured interviews correlated more highly with job requirements than unstructured interviews. Analyzing the interviewer and the interviewee In the late 1980s, research shifted again to the interviewer's capabilities and deficiencies. Dreher et al. (1988) found that the use of multiple interviewers was better than relying on individual judgments. Wiesner and Cronshaw conducted a study in 1988 that seemed to contest this theory. They found that, when board and individual interviews were analyzed, no differences were found between the two approaches. In another study, Dreher et al. (1988) demonstrated what seemed to be common sense: not all individuals are suited to be evaluators individuals are likely to differ in their ability to provide accurate predictions of employee behavior. Eder and Buckley (1988) suggested that interviewers must use different skills when interviewing candidates for more intricate positions. ``The more complex the job the greater the difficulty in adequately assessing the candidate's qualifications and, hence, the more reliance is placed on the interviewer's cognitive skills to form a valid judgment'' (p. 90). Eder and Buckley also concluded that the effects of situational factors on interview outcomes should be considered. Baron (1986) took a different approach to exploring the reliability of the interview and studied the applicant rather than the interviewer. He reasoned that applicants have become very aware of the significant influence of the interview on hiring decisions, and have adjusted their behaviors accordingly.

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``They have sought to enhance their ability to convey a positive impression to interviewers'' (p. 16). A total of 73 undergraduate students participated in Baron's study. They were asked to interview applicants and rate their overall impressions of the applicants. The interviewees had been instructed to act in a specific way during the interview, either exhibiting positive nonverbal cues, such as smiling and making eye contact, or not exhibiting such behaviors. Some of the interviewees were also told to wear perfume during their interviews. Baron predicted that the applicants who exhibited positive nonverbal cues and wore perfume would appear to be trying too hard to impress the interviewer and, as a result, would receive lower ratings. He called this phenomenon ``too much of a good thing'' (p. 24). The results of the study showed that the male evaluators behaved as Baron predicted, but the female evaluators did not. The female evaluators gave applicants high ratings if they exhibited positive nonverbal cues, regardless of whether or not they were wearing perfume. The shift toward meta-analysis The 1980s and early 1990s saw the application of a different type of research method called meta-analysis. This method ``allows for quantitative cumulation of results across studies'' (McDaniel, 1985, p. 7). In 1984, Hunter and Hunter claimed that mental ability tests were superior to other predictors, such as the interview. Their study summarized results from thousands of validity studies. The research that Hunter and Hunter analyzed showed that ability tests were valid across all jobs in predicting proficiency, but ``the interview was found to be valid in only 14 percent of studies'' (p. 78). This meta-analysis was questioned ten years later by Huffcutt and Arthur (1994). Their meta-analysis included 114 interview validity coefficients and found that Hunter and Hunter's validity was too low for the interview. Huffcutt and Arthur were also interested in examining the effect of structure on interview validity. The study yielded the following results regarding the structure of the interview: (1) structure is a major moderator of interview validity; (2) validity increases as structure increases; and (3) there is a point beyond which additional structure adds little or no incremental validity (p. 189). Another meta-analytic study about the structure of the interview was reported by Lowry (1994). He compared the structured interview to the assessment center method of selection. ``Meta-analytic studies of both the assessment center and interview methods reveal that structured interviews and assessment centers have similar validities'' (p. 202). Lowry suggested that the implementation of the structured interview instead of the assessment center could save money while preserving validity. Another 1994 study, conducted by McDaniel et al., examined structured, situational, and psychologically-based interviews. The analysis was based on 245 coefficients derived from 86,311

individuals. The researchers found that ``situational interviews had higher A brief history of validity than did job-related interviews, which, in turn, had higher validities the selection than did psychologically-based interviews'' (p. 599). The study also showed interview what Huffcutt and Arthur (1994) had earlier demonstrated, that structured interviews had higher validities than unstructured interviews. Conway et al. (1995) published a similar meta-analysis in 1995. They also found that highly 123 structured interviews were more valid (0.67) than unstructured interviews (0.34). They added a new dimension to the analyzation of the structured interview, however. They claimed that ``the increasing standardization [of the interview] improved interrater reliability and might also improve construct validity'' (p. 565). All of the meta-analytic evidence points to the validity of the structured interview over the unstructured interview. The researchers of the 1990s seem to be revisiting the theories that were developed as early as 1929 structure is still an asset in an interview. Conclusions and the future of the interview The interview has long been a preferred topic of study for management and psychology researchers. Its popularity among employers and the general public makes the interview a unique research topic. As researchers in the early twentieth century discovered, negative findings about the predictive power, reliability, or validity of the interview have little meaning to the employers and interviewers that depend on the interview as their primary selection tool. The interview provides the personal, face-to-face contact that humans seek and desire. Until another method is developed that allows employers the same benefits and freedoms as the interview, the interview will continue to be used as a primary hiring tool. After almost 100 years of research on the interview, few strides have been taken toward creating a new and better selection tool to replace the interview. Many scholars, including a number of recent meta-analytic researchers, have attempted to encourage the use of the structured interview, citing its higher validity and interrater agreement. Others have taken an opposite stance, promoting the group interview, with little or no structure or interviewer involvement. The answer lies, perhaps, in a combination of the two methods. Because very different qualities can be measured in each situation, an ideal interview would include a group segment, during which emergent leadership and attitude toward others could be assessed, and a structured individual segment, during which an applicant's work experience and personal history could be appraised. Only through the use of both types of interviews can an applicant be fully and reliably evaluated. While extensive work has been done, research on the interview is far from exhausted. In fact, recent research efforts have focused more on reexamining old evidence than formulating new research and theoretical approaches (see Buckley and Russell (1997) for a call to researchers to return to theoretical roots in interview research). The concept of the meta-analytic study is based on drawing conclusions from existing data. Meta-analysis has not facilitated the

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development of more effective theoretical approaches. ``A scholarly discipline builds upon, extends, reflects, and refines the common body of management knowledge'' (Buckley and Eder, 1988, p. 59). Interview researchers have failed to accomplish this over the last 15 years. The interview as a selection tool will not disappear, but the quality and the effectiveness of the interview will diminish if innovative ideas are not developed and passed on to employers. As the demands of the fast-paced global economy force organizations to hire highly-skilled employees quickly and economically, employers will be seeking new and innovative ways to interview applicants. Researchers must rise to meet this challenge through creativity and theory development, not through rehashing old numbers.
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