The job applicant reactions towards Patterned Behavior Description Interview (PBDI) and Mixed Situational and Patterned Behavior Description Interview (Mixed SPBDI)

Introduction

The question that the organizations as well as researchers need to ask in general should not only be ‘have we selected the best applicant that can perform well in the job?’ but also ‘have we left a good impression for the best applicant to be interested to accept our job offer and is able to perform well?’.

In using interview for personnel recruitment and selection, it is important to choose the appropriate interview questions so that skillful people would want to work for that specific organization (Bauer, Truxillo & Paranto, 2004; Rynes, Barber & Varma, 2000). Hence, to some extent, interviews function not only as applicant screening and selection, but they also serve to attract applicants to the organization. If the interview causes a negative reaction such as perceived unfairness or lack of job-relatedness in the applicant, they might withdraw from the selection process, reject the employment offer, or take legal action (Rynes, Bretz & Gerhart, 1991). Hence, the usefulness of the interview process is reduced which then lead to a significant forfeit to organizations (Murphy, 1986).

Two common types of structured interview content are Situational Interview (SI) introduced by Latham (1989), which is future-oriented, and Patterned Behaviour Description Interview (PBDI) introduced by Janz (1982) which is past-oriented. Goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) was used to develop SI (“What will you do if …”) with the assumption that goals or intentions are the instant predictor of the behavior of a person. On the other hand, PBDI (“What did you do when …”) is based on the empirical truism in which “past behaviour predicts future behaviour” (Janz, 1982). The conceptual framework of the present study is adapted from Rynes et al. (2000) as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Conceptual frameworks on applicant reactions to different structured interview content.

Literature review

Latham and Finnegan (1993), Conway and Peneno (1999), Alias (2007), Abdullah (2009) and Mahadi, Alias and Ismail (2015) were among the first to study the applicants’ reactions to a structured interview content. These studies have shown mixed findings on SI and PBDI. There is a likelihood that the different findings were due to the different characteristics of the sample in each study (employees or students), different medium of interview (interview transcript, face-to-face or interview description), and distinguished applicant reaction’s construct studied (perceived predictive validity, practicality, perceived face validity, inclination to advocate the employer to other potential applicants, perceived procedural justice, affective reactions, and perceived content validity).

The first study about the effect of interview content on applicant reactions was done by Latham and Finnegan (1993). This study used students and employees as samples, interview descriptions as the interview medium, and practicality [in achieving applicants’ objectives] as applicant reaction. This study showed that PBDI led to more positive applicant reactions than SI among students, however no significant difference between these two variables among employees were found.

The second study was conducted by Conway and Peneno (1999) who used undergraduate students as study samples, face-to-face interview medium, and applicant reactions involving: (a) perception of predictive validity, (b) perception of face validity, (c) affective reactions, (d) procedural justice, and (e) inclination to advocate the employer to other potential applicants. The results showed applicants perceived SI as having greater perceived face validity as opposed to PBDI. However, SI and PBDI showed no significant difference with regards to perceived predictive validity, procedural justice, affective reactions, or inclination to advocate the employer to other potential applicants.

The third study was conducted by Alias (2007). This study used students as samples, two interview medium which were face-to-face and interview transcript, and applicant reactions based on perceived procedural justice. The findings showed that when utilizing face-to face interview, applicants gave more positive applicant reactions to SI than PBDI. Nonetheless, when utilizing interview transcript, applicants gave more positive reactions to PBDI than SI.

Meanwhile, in the fourth study which was done by Abdullah (2009), SI and PBDI showed no significant difference in their effect on applicant reactions in terms of perceived procedural justice. This study used students as samples and interview transcript as interview medium.

Finally, Mahadi, Alias and Ismail (2015) in their study on applicant reactions to SI and PBDI used employees as samples, interview transcript as medium, and perceived procedural justice as applicant reactions found that, employees reacted more positively to PBDI than SI.

Taken together, though the past research showed mixed findings, applicant reactions were highest towards PBDI in general. This has led to the need to further examine the effect of different structured interview content. The objective of the current study is to examine the effect of a new variable which is the combination of SI and PBDI (mixed SPBDI) in comparison to PBDI on applicant reactions as measured by perceived procedural justice. It is hoped that this study will provide more evidence and support for the research development of applicant reactions towards interview content as it is still new. In this study, applicant reactions are operationally defined as the global scores of applicants received in the adapted Process Fairness Scale by Truxillo and Bauer’s (Bauer et al., 2004) which is based on the Organizational Justice theory. On the other hand, the interview content is operationally defined as the presentation of mixed SPBDI and PBDI using interview transcript. The hypothesis of the current study is non-directional as the mixed SPBDI and PBDI will lead to different effects on applicant reactions.

The researcher believes this study might provide valuable information to the development and implementation of structured interview in personnel selection. Based on the findings, it is hoped that an interview method that has a high validity and at the same time can lead to a positive applicant reaction can be proposed to other researchers as well as practitioners.

Methods

This study involved 46 employees from the foundation center of International Islamic University Malaysia. It used materials comprised of (a) Interview Questions Mixed SPBDI and PBDI, and (b) Applicant Reactions Questionnaires based on perceived procedural justice as explained by Organizational Justice theory.

Results

Table 1 represented the descriptive statistics for applicant reactions to PBDI and mixed SPBDI.

There was a significant difference between PBDI and mixed SPBDI, with PBDI’s mean (M = 13.61; SD = 1.57) significantly higher than mixed SPBDI’s mean (M = 10.89; SD 1.91), t (46) = 7.22; p < 0.01. Since perceived procedural justice is defined as the perception of fairness to the methods utilized (in this case the interview contents), which later affects decisions towards organizations (Folger and Greenberg, 1985), this finding shows that job applicants perceived PBDI as having a fairer method than mixed SPBDI.

Discussion

By using interview transcript as interview medium, employees as sample, and perceived procedural justice as applicant reactions, the result of the current study proved that job applicants reacted more favorably to PBDI than mixed SPBDI. This infers that the hypothesis of the present study is accepted, in which, the mixed SPBDI and PBDI will lead to different effects on applicant reactions. It is also worthwhile to highlight that the results also indicated that participants highly rated both PBDI and mixed SPBDI, where the means were 13.61 and 10.89, respectively. Both scores for PBDI and mixed SPBDI are above the average ratings (based on 7.5 as the average ratings in which the total maximum rating was 15 for the three questions in the scale). This indicates that both contents led to more than average positive applicant reactions.

Although the previous research showed mixed- findings (Latham and Finnegan (1993), Conway and Peneno (1999), Alias (2007), Abdullah (2009), and Mahadi, Alias and Ismail (2015)) which may suggest that perhaps combining SI and PBDI in one interview session may be a good idea, the present study’s attempt to combine both SI and PBDI in one interview session did not lead to a more positive applicant reaction. The perceived procedural justice or perceived fairness to mixed SPBDI in the present study is lower than having only PBDI in one interview session. This means that in the case experienced workers are applying for a job, organizations can utilize PBDI instead of mixed SPBDI. The findings of the present study can lead to few assumptions. First, employees are more interested to be evaluated through their past experience instead of their future behavioral intention (Alias, 2007; Latham & Finnegan, 1993). Perhaps, they feel more confident answering about their work experience that can be evidence about their skills. Second, it also can be assumed here that when dealing with mixed SPBDI questions, perhaps applicants don’t feel comfortable with being asked about both their past and their future at the same time. Perhaps, mixed SPBDI indicated that the interviewer is not confident about applicants’ experience thus needs to ask about their future or vice versa.

In terms of the medium of the interview, the present study’s findings supported the suggestion made by Alias (2007), where if interview transcripts are to be utilized by the organizations (due to cost cutting or time saving), they should use PBDI instead of SI. Based on this study’s results, having mixed SI and PBDI questions in one interview session seems not necessary, and if organizations need to choose between PBDI and mixed SPBDI, they should choose PBDI. Hence, some assumptions can be made in terms of interview medium. First, perhaps through writing on paper, sharing of experience is more comfortable to applicants, which can lead to positive reactions. If the interview is done face-to-face, the findings of the present case study may be different. Second, participants feel better when asked to write their experience compared to when asked to write both their past experience and their future intention. In mixed SPBDI, participants may be confused on what to write to the mixture demand of the questions.

Conclusions

In summary, the current finding provides a better comprehension towards the contradicting findings in earlier empirical research between PBDI and SI. The mixed SPBDI is considered a new variable that has not been studied before. Based on this finding, using employees as sample, and interview transcript as medium, applicants still considered PBDI as having a more perceived fairness.

It is suggested that more studies are to be conducted by future research which can involve this new variable of mixed SPBDI in a different sample such as real job applicants, in other interview medium e.g. face-to-face, telephone or videoconferencing interview, in different construct of applicant reactions for instance as explained by Job Signal Theory in terms of perceived organizational attractiveness (Rynes, 1991), decision in accepting job offers or in self- withdrawing from the selection process (Ryan and Ployhart, 2000), and in qualitative researches to gather new data about the applicant reactions.

It is also worth noting that ratings towards interviews might be prone to cultural sensitivity. It is shown that in Malaysian context and among university academicians, applicants prefer PBDI than mixed SPBDI. This is not supported by some of the earlier studies done among job incumbents in United States (e.g Latham and Finnegan, 1993) but somehow it is similar to a Malaysian study conducted among students (e.g. Alias, 2007). Hence, more research is needed to study whether the result is influenced by geographical and job status background.

Data availability

Consent

Written informed consent for publication of the participants details and/or their responses was obtained from the participants.

Author contributions

Mahadi, M. is the main author of this paper, hence the author contributes to the whole article.

Ethical approval number

Approval Number: EA1192021 Multimedia University Malaysia.