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Abstract

Selecting the right people for the right place the right way is vital to companies in the context of a fiercer war for talent nowadays. Many studies have shown that structured interviews have better predictive validity than unstructured interviews. Despite these repeated findings, most of the recruiters still prefer to use unstructured interviews notably because they allow more freedom for them. The aim of our study was then to examine the degree to which job interviews are structured in the selection practices of Swiss hotels. In addition, we compared if interview structure varies between hotels differing in size, between chain and independent hotels and between 3-star, 4-star and 5-star hotels. Results obtained on 150 recruiters indicate that overall job interviews are rather unstructured in all the categories of hotels surveyed. For example, very few recruiters ask past behavior and situational questions. Moreover, most of the recruiters base their hiring decisions on overall impressions formed during the job interview. Therefore, there is a gap between what human resources researchers recommend and what practitioners do. Our study also shows that job interviews are more structured in larger hotels than in smaller hotels. They are also more structured in chain hotels than in independent hotels. Finally, and contrarily to our hypothesis, job interviews are not more structured in 4-star and 5-star hotels than in 3-star hotels. Reasons for these results and for the gap between the management models that researchers recommend and the practices that professionals still stick to will be discussed in this paper. Practical implications for both researchers and practitioners will also be presented.

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