Recently HRM published a story on the usefulness of job interviews that drew upon widely reported research. Here CEO Anwar Khalil takes a deeper look into the study and draws his own conclusions.

The shocking premise of the a recent study (outlined in The New York Times) is that the job interview is an impediment to hiring the right people. It’s controversial stuff, but worth understanding. Basically, the author makes two points.

1. Interviews may be irrelevant in determining fitness for a role

Years ago a medical school decided to admit 50 more students into a class than it had originally planned. These students, who had initially been denied admission, had met all the other selection requirement, but had failed the interview process.

Later, when measured for academic and clinical performance, researchers could find no significant difference between these students and the others who had passed the interview process. In other words, the interview had added nothing to the process.

2. Interviews can actually hurt the hiring outcome

Jason Dana, the writer of the article and a professor at the Yale School of Management, saw this research and went further. What if interviews were actually an impediment?

Students were given the past grades of other students, interviewed some of them, and were asked to predict their future grades (we wrote about it in more detail in our previous feature.)

The results were eye-opening. The students made better predictions when they hadn’t done an interview, the interviewees had effectively talked them out of making the correct assessment.

But job interviews AREN’T useless

Those of you with extensive interviewing experience will no doubt be raising some important objections. And you’re right. Let’s put this study into perspective.

The interviewers were students, and presumably lacked long-term interviewing experience. Not only that, these interviews were not taking place in the context of a workplace.

Second, the goal of the interviews was predictive of a very specific thing: future grades. The goal of a job interview is usually much more complex. When you’re assessing a future employee, you have already assessed their basic job competency and are now trying to weigh other features like cultural fit.

And let’s not forget the other side of the interview equation —the value a candidate receives. Interviews can serve the important purpose of giving the candidate insight into your organization before they make the choice. This insight can save you time, money and hassle. After all, if a candidate sees something they don’t like, it’s better that they screen themselves out before taking the job.

So can we make the most of interviews?

Many of us take pride in our gut instincts, our ability to “read” people and our emotional intelligence. All of these things are important, but there is no harm in injecting some healthy doubt into interviewing. The point is: don’t eliminate the job interview, but question it and by questioning it, improve its effectiveness.

So next time you interview, try these tips