The UK Behavioural Insights Team took a look at whether one really smart person or a group of people reviewing candidates’ interview responses produced better hiring decisions.
They reported on three different conditions.
In one, an “easy” situation, where there was a clear gap between the best and second best response they found that one person working alone would select the wrong person 16% of the time. In contrast, they found a group of 3 reviewers would fail 6% of the time and with 5 reviewers the number fell to 1%.
In a second, more difficult choice, where a “good” response was less clear, they found that going from one to three reviewers lowered the chance of getting it wrong from 33% to 15%.
The third situation involved choosing between two candidates whose responses were very similar. In this case, the lone person was as good as a coin toss at 50-50. Adding more reviewers increased the chance of getting right substantially.
The article published here contains a graphic portrayal of the results. While their research is ongoing, it appears safe to say that more reviewers from diverse backgrounds will produce better hiring decisions.