What are the best practices for using the critical incident method in recruiting?

The essential point lies in the definition of the requirement profile and the resulting question form or evaluation matrix of the answers. This is as much art as it is science.

When collecting critical incidents, including different perspectives from different departments can provide a holistic view of the role. This multidisciplinary approach enriches the understanding of the impact of the role across the organisation

Best practice to employ the critical incident technique (CiT) in recruitment: articulate precise job requirements, train interviewers in the technique, and employ open-ended questions focused on key competencies. Encourage the documentation of specific incidents to obtain a balanced evaluation of both positive and negative behaviours. Integrating the critical incident method with other assessment approaches contributes to a comprehensive evaluation of candidates, and providing feedback enhances the overall recruitment process.

According to reliable data, humans are able to keep track of 7 pieces of information at the same time. This is why I advocate an incremental analysis and a multimodal approach that uses a step-by-step procedure to uncover one layer after another in the aspirant. This allows the greatest possible predictive validity to be achieved.

The bottom line is to reduce the complexity of the task to be accomplished by modeling all the factors, skills, personality, values, culture, scenario, context, etc. that can be captured. And assess them via interviewing and tests. In addition, socially desirable self-explanations are questioned and referenced as far as possible so that they do not remain pure assumptions or autoreferential statements, but rather substantial, measurable, verifiable findings that can be put into context.

When creating the job description, it's beneficial to align it with the company's strategic objectives. This alignment ensures that the role contributes directly to the organization's overarching goals and attracts candidates who are aligned with these objectives

The job description should be as informative as possible and should claim to place the position to be filled in the context of the required personality, including all the ultimate success factors, and present these in a sustainable way with the company's success and adjacent spheres of activity within the company.

The most important factors in the selection of suitable evaluation methods are the scientific quality criteria and the reproduction rate or reliability and validity. Furthermore, there is a need for external evaluation objectivity away from socially desirable and auto-referenced standards. Structured interviews, GMA test and work samples, as well as reference information thus lead to incremental variance clarification of up to .85 in construct validity