Repertory Grid in Recruitment and Selection Interviewing

 

Can Repertory Grid Be Used as a Selection Interviewing Tool?

It’s such an attractive proposition, isn’t it? Find out about people on their own terms, in their own language; not being tied to psychological testing; being able to probe interesting areas more fully. However, what you run up against immediately is the fact that because nobody can fake a Grid, and so if they feel uncomfortable they retreat into silence or giving you propositional constructs. Most Gridders have forgotten what it feels like to experience Grid for the first time - the speed with which you become aware that this is all about you, there’s no place to hide, and you’re into rather speedy self-revelation.

Yes, But

For that reason, I wouldn’t use Grid in selection interviewing until the recruitment process was quite advanced, the applicant(s) had had time to feel comfortable with you and trust you, and the interviewer was very clear about the kind of contract you had with the interviewee. In fact, my advice would be exactly the same for Grid as for the use of personality testing, which is:

1. Wait until you have a short-list of people who have gone through all the initial hoops and whom you’d consider employing;
2. Think of the process - Grid or psychological testing - as a way of helping you work out how best you can help this person ‘hit the ground running’: for example, if you detect that someone would do best as a senior member of a small group, you’ll have problems if the only post you have in mind is as a junior member of a large group;
3. Avoid any possibility of suggesting that there are right or wrong answers;
4. What gets presented to line managers is not the psychological profile, or the raw Grid, but a report you’ve written which summarises the chief points about that person;
5. Feedback to the applicant is essential (you almost can’t avoid it with Grid, but unscrupulous people often duck out of it with psychological testing);
6. Data on unsuccessful applicants are kept for a very short time only and then destroyed.
7. No single test or instrument should be relied on for a make-or-break decision. Grid or test results are only part of a bigger package, which includes interviews, references, technical competence, etc.

Then you could use Grid, probably using key events in the person’s life as elements, or technical issues related to the person’s speciality, and what you’re doing is really a very penetrating form of behaviour-based interview. Be careful to allow plenty of time, because you don’t want the applicant to think that there was more they could say but you cut them off in mid-flow.

Use at the Person-Specification Stage

However, if you sense that Grid wouldn’t be appropriate because you can’t meet these conditions, you don’t need to remove it from the process altogether. It can do extraordinary things at the person-specification stage.

A session with the receiving manager where he or she is asked to think of critical events in the hew hire’s job, in terms of the skills and abilities which will be needed to manage them successfully makes the receiving managers think really hard about what they want from their new hires, instead of just reeling off a list of competences and experience. It’s a very good way to ensure that the new hire comes into an environment where the manager has gone through some forcible empathy about the demands of the task. It’s another way of making sure that the new hire hits the ground running; it’s more cost-effective and less personally sensitive than doing Grids with the applicant.

In summary: Grid is great for helping devise person-specifications. It can also provide very interesting insights when used with job applicants, but you must be careful to manage the sensitivities involved and make sure that the interviewer has a high level of skill and empathy.

Prepared by Dr Valerie Stewart

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