Corporations hone interview skills

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 1996

As corporate America continues downsizing, the competition for the decreasing number of high-paying jobs is intensifying. Accordingly, companies are putting greater emphasis on finding - and keeping - the best candidates.

Businesses are willing to spend big bucks to train their managers how to interview and hire candidates more effectively. Of the $52,000,000,000 budgeted by business for formal training in 1995, hiring practices and interviewing techniques were among the most frequently used types of employee training.

For instance, American Honda, in order to attract and keep quality people in a tight labor market, relies on what Robert Agli, manager of corporate training and development, calls a "process-oriented, common-sense approach to interviewing and hiring." While traditional interviewing techniques depend more on the personality of the candidate and intuition of the employer, Honda is using a five-step interviewing process that begins with an analysis of the skills needed for a position and continues through the rating of an applicant's skills following the interview.

Putting the right person in the right job makes economic sense. Managers know it is more cost effective to hire and keep an employee than fire an existing one. Generally, turnover costs are estimated at about one-third of an annual salary. Replacing a $50,000 a-year manager will cost a company about $16,000, including the expense of hiring and training a replacement, losses due to inefficiency while the replacement learns the job, and indirect costs resulting from such things as low morale and poor service.