Should you follow your gut? The impact of expertise on intuitive hiring decisions for complex jobs

• Published in: Journal of management & organization Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 910 - 930
• Main Authors: Vincent, Vinod U., Guidice, Rebecca M., Mero, Neal P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2024; Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM)
• Subjects: Decision making; Employees; Explicit knowledge; Hiring; Job performance; Job requirements; Subject specialists; Tacit knowledge; employee selection; Complex jobs; expertise; managerial cognition; intuition
• ISSN: 1833-3672; 1839-3527
• DOI: 10.1017/jmo.2021.9

As jobs become increasingly complex, organizations are challenged with finding effective ways to select and hire successful employees. The high level of uncertainty generally associated with hiring decisions is greater for complex jobs where it is difficult to identify the predictors of good job performance. Intuition research has found expert intuition to be effective in highly uncertain decision environments. However, most employment selection research dismisses the use of intuition and argues that even expert interviewers should not rely on their intuition. To bridge the two research streams, this paper addresses the research question: for complex jobs, can the intuition of expert decision-makers enhance the effectiveness of hiring decisions? The hypotheses were tested via an experimental study design using expert and nonexpert interviewer samples. The results demonstrate that, when recruiting for complex jobs, interviewer expertise does increase the quality of intuitive hiring decisions.