Sociometric Selection and the Employment Interview: An Empirical Examination

In this article, the author reports his empirical test of Adams, Elacqua, and Colarelli's (1994) assertion that the unstructured employment interview is a means of sociometric selection. On the basis of 80 unstructured interviews provided by 13 participants, the author concluded that measures of sociometric fit, job fit, and work world fit were correlated with hiring recommendations. Additionally, he examined the three types of fit comparatively through a regression analysis and concluded that sociometric and job fit were significantly related to hiring recommendations, whereas work world fit was not. The findings support the idea that the interview is used to assess both sociometric fit and job fit.