How Employee Selection Decisions are Made in Practice

Abstract

Existing literature on employee selection contains an abundance of knowledge of how selection should take place but almost nothing about how it occurs in practice. This paper presents an ethnomethodological-discourse analytical real-time study of how selection decisions are made in situ. The main findings suggest that selection decision making is characterized by ongoing practical deliberation involving four interrelated discursive processes: assembling versions of the candidates; establishing the versions of the candidates as factual; reaching selection decisions; and using selection tools as sensemaking devices. In addition, this paper identifies two basic forms of selection decision making: one characterized by initial agreement and one characterized by initial disagreement. In each basic form of decision making, selectors reason through the four discursive processes in a methodical, situated and practical manner in order to construct local versions of the candidates and make ‘reasonable’ selection decisions.

Keywords

critical HRM decision making discourse analysis employee selection ethnomethodology meetings practice theory selection decision

Introduction

By choosing the right employees, organizations improve their abilities to realize strategic objectives and manage future challenges (Barber, 1998; Compton, Morrissey, & Nankervis, 2009; Gatewood, Feild, & Barrick, 2010; Sears, 2003). Although employee selection is considered key for organizations, existing research has usually paid little attention to how selection decision making takes place in real-life situations (Collinson, Knights, & Collinson, 1990; Highhouse, 1997; Iles & Salaman, 1995; Zysberg & Nevo, 2004). Instead, it has focused on developing and testing tools intended to improve selection and make it more efficient (Hollway, 1984; Iles & Salaman, 1995). As a result, there is considerable knowledge about selection tools and prescriptions for using them, but limited knowledge about how selection decisions are made. Without the latter, it is difficult to assess how selection tools and procedures will improve employee selection processes (Anderson, Herriot, & Hodgkinson, 2001; Dipboye, 1997; Ryan & Tippins, 2004; Rynes, Colbert, & Brown, 2002). In this paper, we analyse eight real-time selection decision meetings in two IT businesses in order to explore how the selection decisions occur in practice.

Dominant Approaches to Selection Decision Making

Two main approaches dominate research on employee selection: the psychometric and the social process approach (Herriot, 1992; Hollway, 1991; Iles, 1999; Iles & Salaman, 1995). The psychometric approach assumes that every job consists of a number of discrete tasks, that individuals possess stable attributes and that job and person can be measured independently (McCourt, 1999). It aims to develop and test selection tools (Herriot & Anderson, 1997; Iles, 1999) that enable selectors to identify, step by step, the candidate whose attributes objectively best match the job and organizational requirements (Kristof-Brown, 2000; Ramsay & Scholarios, 1999; Sandberg, 2000). In this regard, testing the validity and reliability of selection tools (Sackett & Lievens, 2008; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998) becomes a core issue.

Although not opposed to testing, the social process approach claims that selection tools that do not have a high proven validity and reliability can be judged favourably due to their usability in establishing a psychological contract between candidate and organization (Anderson, 1992; de Wolff, 1993; Herriot, 1992; Lockyer & Scholarios, 2004; Schuler, 1993). Instead of treating interpersonal dynamics as interfering elements, the social process approach puts these dynamics at the forefront and explores the relationship between individual and organization (Herriot, 1993).

Although they have different research foci, the two dominant approaches converge in important ways. First, both take the individual, i.e. selector and candidate, as the unit of analysis and largely disregard the social context in which selection takes place (Hollway, 1984; Ramsay & Scholarios, 1999; Venn, 1984). Second, both emphasize the interaction or fit between person-job and person-organization (Kristof-Brown, 2000) at the expense of intra-organizational processes, which means that they only provide a ‘partial account’ of selection (Ramsay & Scholarios, 1999, p. 64). Third, and most importantly, by conceptualizing selection decision making as a series of steps, they do not attend to decision making per se. As a result, little is known about how selection decision making actually takes place.

Although some studies focus more directly on selection decision making, they mainly investigate individuals’ decisional processes (e.g. Herriot & Rothwell, 1981; Herriot & Wingrove, 1984). A few experimentally designed studies have been conducted (e.g. Graves & Karren, 1992; Highhouse & Bottrill, 1995; Hough & Oswald, 2000; Kristof-Brown, 2000; Slaughter, Bagger, & Li, 2006; Slaughter, Sinar, & Highhouse, 1999), but they have either used self-report techniques or simulated decision making processes and thus paid little attention to decision making ‘in real life situations with real life candidates’ (Zysberg & Nevo, 2004, p. 118).

Silverman and Jones (1976) probably go closest to investigating how selection decisions are made in situ in their study of employment interviews, group selection activities and selectors’ post-interview discussions of the candidates. They found that selectors made their decisions early on in the interviews and thereafter worked to confirm and justify the rationality of those decisions. However, they did not study ‘how’ in the sense that they analysed decision making as it occurs. Indeed, they claim that it would require direct access to selectors’ thoughts during the unfolding interview. As this is impossible, the researcher is left with methods that capture nothing but ex post facto rationalizations of a known outcome. In this study, we contest this claim and argue that it is possible to investigate how selectors accomplish selection decision making as it occurs by studying what discursive processes and considerations selectors are engaged in when making decisions about whether a candidate should be offered a job.

An Ethnomethodological-Discourse Analytical Approach to Selection Decision Making

We adopted a combined ethnomethodological-discourse analytical approach to investigate how selectors accomplish decision making in practice. Ethnomethodology conceptualizes sensemaking as an intersubjective rather than individual process (Gephart, Topal, & Zhang, 2010; Llewellyn & Spence, 2009). As Gephart (1993, p. 1470) notes, a key assumption is that ‘sensemaking occurs and can be studied in the discourses of social members – the intersubjective social world – rather than simply occurring in their minds’. In a similar way, we argue that by studying the discourses of actual selection decision meetings, it is possible to describe how selectors collectively make sense of and make decisions about candidates (see Alby & Zucchermaglio, 2006; Boden, 1994; Gephart, 1978; Huisman, 2001; Potter, 1996). Below we give an overview of the central features and concepts of ethnomethodology and discourse analysis and then discuss how we have combined them.

Ethnomethodology

Ethnomethodology focuses on the everyday commonsense knowledge and interpretive practices actors rely upon in producing and maintaining social reality. Its fundamental question is how do people collectively and methodically create and sustain a sense of social reality as objectively ‘there’ (Garfinkel, 1967; Heritage, 1984; Leiter, 1980; Rawls, 2008)? Garfinkel (1967) proposes the documentary method of interpretation as core to exploring this question. It highlights that actors treat ‘successive presented appearances’ of people, action and activities as pointing to a presumed underlying pattern, while simultaneously also using ‘what is known’ to further interpret ‘what is seen’ (Heritage, 1984, pp. 84–97). However, the documentary method is far from algorithmic. Instead, the actors’ understandings of what is going on are at any given stage ‘provisional, “loose” and subject to revision’ (Heritage, 1987, p. 238). Indeed, Garfinkel (1967) emphasized that the production of social reality is an ongoing accomplishment. First, the indexical or context-bound property of talk, objects and events means that actors must continuously assemble a context for interpretation in order to define their meaning in particular circumstances (Leiter, 1980, pp. 107–38; Heritage, 1984, pp. 142–57). In most situations, this unending openness of talk is unproblematic since actors trust one another to ‘fill in’ and competently make sense of what each is saying. However, in situations where ‘actors are called upon to make evident, or defend, the clarity, precision, exhaustiveness, consistency, reproducibility, objectivity, disinterestedness – i.e. the rationality – of their descriptions, explanations and accounts’ (Heritage, 1984, p. 157), they will try to erase contextual attachments and minimize the need for interpretation. Second, the reflexive property of social phenomena means that accounts reveal certain features of settings but, since the accounts are indexical, the settings also provide the specific sense of the accounts; they constitute each other reflexively (Leiter, 1980, pp. 138–148).

Ethnomethodologists criticize the stance usually taken in decision making literature where rules possess ‘stable operational meanings invariant to the exigencies of actual situations of use’, are ‘distinct from the practical interests, perspective, and interpretive practices of the rule user’ (Zimmerman, 1970, p. 223) and produce action in a rather straightforward fashion. Instead, they emphasize the need to investigate the reasoning involved in the application of rules in concrete situations of decision making, such as under what circumstances actors conclude that a rule is applicable, how actors elaborate the sense of a rule and what actors see as an instance of applying a rule.

Ethnomethodological studies have in a wide range of different contexts highlighted two central aspects of how decisions are made in practice (e.g. Alby & Zucchermaglio, 2006; Bittner, 1967; Cicourel, 1974; Huisman, 2001; Leiter, 1974; Potter & Hepburn, 2010; Suchman, 1987; Sudnow, 1974; Wieder, 1970, 1974; Zimmerman, 1970). First, since rules are indexical, decision making involves taking the practical circumstances into consideration and providing ad hoc grounds for why and how a rule is or is not applicable. The particular sense of a rule is thus specific to the situation in which it is employed and since every context consists of new particulars, rules are always applied ‘for another first time’. Second, actors use rules as interpretive schemes to make sense of the circumstances in which they find themselves as circumstances of a certain kind, and of their relationships to others as relationships of a certain kind. These interpretive schemes are thus used to identify ‘what has occurred’ and reflexively produce practical reality, and thereby also used to evaluate the range of future actions that may be taken. Taken together, these two aspects mean that ‘“action” and “context” are mutually elaborative and mutually determinative elements in a simultaneous equation that the actors are continually solving and re-solving to determine the nature of the events in which they are placed’ (Heritage, 1987, p. 242).

Discourse analysis

Although we share ethnomethodology’s analytic interests and use key ethnomethodological concepts to drive our data interpretation, we follow a methodology that builds on discourse analysis rather than conversation analysis, which is commonly used in ethnomethodologically oriented studies. Conversation analysis (Atkinson, 1988; Atkinson & Heritage, 1984; Heritage, 1984; Maynard & Clayman, 1991) focuses primarily on the turn-by-turn sequential organization of spoken interaction in order to investigate what conversational methods people use and how they use them ‘for producing orderly social interaction’ (Silverman, 2011, p. 286). In contrast, discourse analysis (Potter, 2004, 2011; Potter & Wetherell, 1987, 1994) focuses on discourse as ‘“situated” language use in the contexts in which it takes place’ (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 118) in order to examine how versions of ‘reality’ are ‘produced, dealt with and made relevant by participants in and through interaction’ (Hepburn & Wiggins, 2005, p. 595). In other words, discourse analysis implies an interest not only in constitutive interactional activity but also in the ‘constitutive and constituted whats of everyday life’ (Gubrium & Holstein, 2000, p. 493). However, the exact nature of the similarities and differences between the two, and their relative merits, are subject to recurrent discussion (Billig, 1999; Hepburn & Potter, 2004; Schegloff, 1997; Silverman, 2011; Wetherell, 1998; Wooffitt, 2005). While conversation analysis has been criticized, both from within and from without, for having an ‘unduly restricted perspective’ (Atkinson, 1988, p. 441), discourse analysis has been criticized for imposing analysts’ own terms and concerns and thereby reifying discourse (Schegloff, 1997). Our reason for opting for discourse analysis in investigating selection decision making is that it provides a broader analytic focus, in the sense that it is not confined to sequential organization but extends to rhetorical organization, allows a wider analysis of function and takes a more interpretive stance (Billig, 1999; Potter, 2011; Wooffitt, 2005).

Methods

Design and data collection

We conducted an in-depth real-time study of the selection of IT professionals (systems developers, business developers and strategy consultants) in two medium-sized IT businesses, herein called IT Consultant and IT Bank. IT Consultant was the Swedish subsidiary of a global technology consulting group, while IT Bank supplied all IT solutions to its group. In both organizations, job applications were examined first by HR specialists who short-listed promising candidates. The chosen candidates were then interviewed once, twice or three times by selectors (HR specialists, managers and colleagues). IT Consultant used case interviews where candidates presented prepared solutions to cases. References were taken and, in some instances, a personality test administered.

In addition to interviews with four HR specialists to obtain background information, the study comprised real-time observations of eight selection decision meetings, four in each organization, all held directly after the employment interviews and lasting about 15 minutes. Selectors dealt with the candidates one by one, in each meeting deciding whether a specific candidate should be offered a job. Seven of the candidates were native Swedes and one was a Greek immigrant. They were between 30 and 55 years old and all held university degrees. Six of the candidates were men and two were women.

The decision meetings were audio-recorded and transcribed according to the conventions in Wetherell and Potter (1992) (see Table 1). The analysis was built from original transcripts in Swedish, from which extracts were translated for dissemination purposes.

Table 1.

Transcription conventions.

Transcription convention	Indicates
(.)	Short pause
‘text’	The speaker is reproducing talk
(text)	Brief comment from another speaker
…	Omitted material
[text]	Clarifying or explanatory material
text	Words said with emphasis
Capital letters, commas, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks	These are applied in a way which improves the extracts’ readability but still conveys their ‘heard’ sense as effectively as possible

Analysing data

Following Boden (1994), we make a distinction between ‘decisions’ and ‘decision making’. Decisions are often, as in our data, the focal point of organizational meetings. If decisions are defined as outcomes, however, they may not actually be produced in the meetings at all and, even if they are, objectively identifying them may be difficult. Decision making, on the other hand, is a more ‘observable feature’ of organizational settings (Boden, 1994, p. 84). Here, we view decision making as an incremental and interactional process that ‘can be located in the fine laminations of actions and reactions that build, from one moment to another, into the organization’ (Boden, 1994, p. 22) and we view selection decisions as selectors’ claims that decisions have been reached. In line with their view of assessment as part of decision making, selectors also made various claims during meetings about ‘what the candidates are like’ in terms of who they are and what they can do.

In the analysis we focused on how the selectors, through different procedures, intersubjectively produced versions of the candidates and selection decisions (Potter, 2004; Potter & Hepburn, 2008). We began by looking for instances where selectors made decision claims and found, in each case, that the selectors ostensibly agreed on a decision before the meeting was concluded. We initially contrasted hiring against non-hiring meetings, but did not find that differences in the decision outcome led to meaningful differences with respect to how the selectors made sense of and made decisions about candidates. However, when we focused on decision making rather than the decision itself (Boden, 1994), we found that some meetings were characterized by considerably more disagreement than others. In some, the selectors discussed only one version of the candidate and only one selection decision, whereas in others they constructed different versions of the same candidate and/or propagated different decisions about the same candidate. The meetings were consequently grouped into two categories: initial agreement (three meetings in IT Bank and one in IT Consultant) and initial disagreement (one meeting in IT Bank and three in IT Consultant).

In the next phase, we approached the categories one by one and looked for patterns in the material. Discourse analytical studies typically look for three types of pattern when investigating how versions are constructed and dealt with by participants (Potter, 2011; Wood & Kroger, 2000). The first is variability in and between participants’ accounts and formulations (Hepburn & Potter, 2004; Potter, 2011). This involves searching for variation in content and structure, for example ‘differences in descriptions of objects and events, stylistic shifts, and the choice of different words’ (Potter, 2004, p. 616). Analysis of variability is key since it is essentially an analysis of what is being done in a particular piece of discourse. The second is rhetorical organization which involves attending to how one version relates to other actual or potential versions of the same phenomenon, in particular, how they are organized to be persuasive and undermine alternatives (Billig, 1996; Potter, 2011; Potter & Edwards, 2001; Potter & Wetherell, 1994). Finally, fact construction focuses attention on how versions are made to seem factual and independent of the speaker (Edwards, 1997; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996).

By looking for variability, rhetorical organization and fact construction, we tracked the emergence of versions of the candidates throughout the meetings. We explored how selectors built versions by making claims about the candidate, and how various claims led to the emergence of what selectors understood as a coherent whole or as different versions. We also considered how selectors substantiated their claims and how these substantiations created a sense of facticity of versions. Finally, we explored how agreement was ostensibly reached and, relatedly, how decision claims were made.

In this manner, we derived from the data four interrelated discursive processes through which selectors collectively make sense of and make decisions about candidates in decision meetings: assembling versions of the candidates, i.e. how selectors constituted the candidates by describing their attributes; establishing versions of the candidates as factual, i.e. how selectors substantiated their claims about the candidates by constructing facts from information about the candidates; reaching selection decisions, i.e. how selectors made decision claims; and using selection tools as sensemaking devices, i.e. how selectors used selection tools as interpretive schemes. We found that these discursive processes, which operate in parallel rather than sequentially, play out differently depending on the basic meeting form: initial agreement or initial disagreement.

Displaying data

The analysis was performed on all eight decision making meetings, but due to space consideration we display and discuss four meetings in the current text (see Table 2). Since the analysis focuses on how the decision making process takes place, these particular meetings were chosen to achieve representativeness with regard to the organization in which they were conducted as well as the form of decision making. Although including all eight meetings would have given the reader a fuller understanding of the data, we believe the four included here provide representative examples of the analytic themes we wish to discuss in the paper.

Table 2.

Overview of eight selection decision meetings.

Candidate	Organization	Position of vacancy	Meeting participants	Decision	Form of decision making	Number of lines in transcript
Gustav (M)*	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 recruiting manager: Ludvig (M)	Offer made	Initial agreement	92
Gustav (M)*	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 HR specialist: Cecilia (F)	Offer made	Initial agreement	92

Evert (M)	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 recruiting manager: Ellen (F)	No offer	Initial agreement	124
Evert (M)	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 HR specialist: Cecilia (F)	No offer	Initial agreement	124

Anneli (F)	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 recruiting manager: Arnold (M)	No offer	Initial agreement	111
Anneli (F)	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 HR specialist: Cecilia (F)	No offer	Initial agreement	111

Janis (M)	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 recruiting manager: Arnold (M)	No offer	Initial disagreement	94
Janis (M)	IT Bank	Systems developer	1 HR specialist: Cecilia: (F)	No offer	Initial disagreement	94

Jonas (M)	IT Consultant	Strategy consultant	1 recruiting manager: Oskar (M)	No offer	Initial disagreement	171
			2 colleagues: Camilla (F), Nils (M)
			2 HR specialists: Sophia (F), John (M)

Henry (M)	IT Consultant	Strategy consultant	1 recruiting manager: Oskar (M)	No offer	Initial disagreement	105
			2 managers: Martin (M), Adam (M)
			1 colleague: Camilla (F)

Kjell (M)	IT Consultant	Business developer	1 recruiting manager: Martin (M)	Offer made	Initial disagreement	87
			1 colleague: Camilla (F)
			1 HR specialist: John (M)

Johanna (F)	IT Consultant	Systems developer	2 colleagues: Beatrice (F), Ken (M)	Offer made	Initial agreement	131
Johanna (F)	IT Consultant	Systems developer	1 HR specialist: Sophia (F)	Offer made	Initial agreement	131

M = male; F = female.

Shaded row = extracts are displayed in the results section.

In order to enable the reader to follow, make sense of and check our analytic interpretations (Silverman, 2011), we display larger extracts of decision talk from each of the four chosen cases (see Data Displays (DD) 1 –4). The extracts were chosen to give a sense of the life spans of the meetings as well as the decision making processes as a whole. We have included lines containing claims about ‘what the candidates are like’ as well as lines where decision claims are made.

Results: How Candidates are Selected for Jobs

In this section we describe the results of our analysis in three emerging steps. First, we present an interpretation of four decision meetings one by one. In this precursory step we describe how each meeting evolved and explore claims selectors made about candidates and decisions. Building on this we next derive and discuss four discursive processes involved in selection decision making. Finally, we integrate the analysis by conceptualizing selection decision making in situ as ongoing practical deliberation.

Four selection decision meetings

Meeting 1

Gustav (Data Display 1) is currently working in the IT consultancy industry and has applied for a systems developer position at IT Bank. The selectors slowly build a positive version of Gustav and subsequently he receives a job offer. The meeting is characterized by initial agreement, as the selectors discuss only one version of Gustav and one selection decision.

Data Display 1.

Gustav.

1.	C:	Mm. Yes, no (.) What do we think?
2.	L:	What do we think?
3.	C:	Do you want to start?
4.	L:	Yes (.) Uh (.) Uhm I thought it was (.) He kept a pretty low uhm (.) pretty low profile, a nice (.) manner (.) a bit reserved but. Uh (.) Felt I suppose more like he was out looking at employers … I mean like he himself said he wants (.) he’s looking for something a bit more long term (Cecilia: mm) where he follows things and
5.	C:	This guy has done some consulting work for us before?
6.	L:	Yes.
7.	C:	Ok.
		[pause]
8.	L:	Uh (.) It felt (.) Well but I think he (.) he has very (.) very good in many ways. I mean he (.) he is quite secure in what he does and feels to me (.) kind of not particularly adaptable or what should I call it. I mean he is not (.) doesn’t want to throw himself into the unknown. In that case he would probably have stayed in the consultancy business (.) So it (.) Yes it felt (.) But I don’t think, it doesn’t feel like the meeting actually challenged him (C: No) (.) It wasn’t the best interview we’ve done, so to speak.
…
26.	L:	Eh (.) Well I think, I mean, I feel that we (.) actually did get what we needed to know from the interview and like you said he doesn’t have (.) a whole lot of experience in this particular area which is probably why (.) I mean, that’s why we couldn’t ask so many questions. And (.) his overall experience looks very good and we should trust the references (.) a lot. I also wrote, drew on the whiteboard there (.) where it says Gustav over there. I drew what I think his profile will look like.
27.	C:	Oh ok.
28.	L:	You could save it until you get the answer. But it explains everything to me.
29.	C:	If that’s what it’ll look like.
30.	L:	If that’s what it’ll look like. If it turns out really different (.) I’ll be very surprised.
31.	C:	[laughing] I wonder what this says about you.
32.	L:	Yes.
		[both laugh]
33.	C:	You being someone who draws profiles before they’re analysed. Well that’s good (.) No but I also felt when I (.) he gave (.) Of the interviews I’ve had so far I felt that this one felt (.) good. I don’t mean the interview, I mean the candidate. (L: Yes) It felt good. (L: Yes)…
…
39.	C:	But like I said, it is (.) feels like we should sign him on.
40.	L:	Yes I think so. Absolutely. I think we should do that (.) We should put him in the hands of the area manager also (.) and let him talk to him. Because I think you have to (.) he has to start in that (.) that end anyhow. Learning the area. So I think that he (.) I mean I (.) I see him as an asset you know (Cecilia: mm) (.) both personality-wise in the group and with his background.
41.	C:	But if we look at his manner during the interview, how (.) He wasn’t exactly assertive and still we think that he was a solid candidate.
42.	L:	Mm.
43.	C:	We’ve said about quite a few others that maybe we’ve thought that they haven’t been assertive enough and it seems very (.) What was it that made him (.) seem (.)
44.	L:	I don’t think he is particularly assertive (.) either. I think he is (.) I mean he wants to learn his area and so to speak improve in that area. Within a small niche.
45.	C:	What do we think about the fact that he didn’t feel comfortable being project manager?
		[L. points to the whiteboard and the profile he’s drawn there]
46.	C:	Ok mm.
47.	L:	That’s what I mean. That profile, it says that that is a (.) Focus lies on his capacity and will to deliver uh (.) deliver and deliver the right things. He is uh (.) in-between (.) on creativity, if we look at that side of his personality. Uh (.) very low on the social without being uncomfortable in social situation uh (.) and has a pretty strong, pretty strong engine. That’s what the profile tells us.
		[pause]
48.	C:	To me he didn’t seem creative.
49.	L:	No (.) Creativity isn’t one of his strong (C: No) sides but (.) I mean it (.) it is delivering. He doesn’t think so much for himself but he, if you (.) or ‘doesn’t think so much for himself’ (.) Maybe he won’t come up with the most earth-shattering new ideas by himself (.) but he is, you know, good at what he does.
…
63.	C:	You said earlier (.) You said you thought he was just kind of getting a feel for different employers
64.	L:	(.) Mm (.) No I’m not entirely convinced that (.) He was hardly selling. (C: mm) I mean even if I were (.) If I had a profile like that I would try to go out of my way and sell myself a bit more (.) if I really wanted to get away from where I was now and get this (.) like new job. But he (.) he took it easy and (.) tried so to speak (.) to kind of soberly look at what this would be like. If it would be interesting to him or not, you see. He saw it more from his own perspective rather than trying to get us to buy him.
65.	C:	Mm, mm (.) Did you notice the way he was dressed?
		[pause]
66.	C:	Did you notice? (L: Well) He was wearing a sweater. Did you notice? (.) Not shirt and tie (.) or?
67.	L:	Well I mean (.) we don’t have a clear (.) dress code so (.) it doesn’t really matter.
		[pause]
68.	C:	I was thinking that most people dress up for an interview even if they don’t normally wear shirt and tie. This guy was actually wearing (.) In my opinion he seemed very very relaxed. (L: That’s right) He didn’t look nervous at all. (L: No) (.) Whatever that (.) means.
69.	L:	Well it’s what I just said that he didn’t come here to sell himself. He came to see if we were interesting to him. (C: mm, mm) He didn’t have to try to impress us or be nervous because he (.) Well that’s not why he came.

Invited to begin, Ludvig describes what he ‘thinks’ about Gustav. He claims that Gustav is ‘very good’ and that he has a number of positive attributes: he keeps a ‘pretty low profile’, has a ‘nice’ but ‘a bit reserved’ manner and is ‘quite secure in what he does’ (lines 4–8). The only seemingly negative attribute he mentions is that Gustav is ‘not particularly adaptable’. However, Ludvig explains that this means that Gustav ‘doesn’t want to throw himself into the unknown’, and his lack of adaptability is not seen as a disadvantage but rather as a reason for him to leave the more volatile consultancy business. At the end of line 8, Ludvig initiates a discussion about how he and Cecilia conducted the interview. This discussion is concluded at the beginning of line 26, where Gustav’s lack of experience in the specific programming area is used to explain why they couldn’t challenge him. Instead, Ludvig uses two other information pieces, Gustav’s ‘overall experience’ and the references, as evidence to support his positive interpretation.

Next Ludvig focuses on Gustav’s personality profile, which he has drawn on the whiteboard (line 26). As the selectors have not yet received the test results it is a presumed profile, which is recognized as deviant and gives rise to laughter (lines 28–33). Nonetheless, Ludvig says that the profile explains ‘everything’ (line 28). In line 33, Cecilia confirms that her interpretation of Gustav is positive as well.

In lines 39–40, the selectors state a decision to make Gustav an offer and then voice further claims about his attributes. His lack of assertiveness is de-emphasized by pointing to his willingness ‘to learn’ and improve ‘within a small niche’ (lines 41–4). The presumed profile is used (lines 45–9) to explain why Gustav is not comfortable taking the role of project manager: he is ‘in-between on creativity’ and ‘very low on the social’. It also puts these seemingly negative attributes into perspective: they are part of his profile, a profile which more importantly includes positive attributes such as a ‘capacity and will to deliver’ and ‘a pretty strong engine’. As Ludvig concludes, Gustav is ‘good at what he does’.

In the last extract, the selectors discuss several divergences from ‘normal’ interview behaviour: that Gustav did not sell himself (lines 63–4) and that he wasn’t dressed up or nervous (lines 65–8). Ludvig explains these divergences by pointing out that Gustav’s question is if he ‘buys’ IT Bank rather than whether they ‘buy’ him (lines 64, 69).

Meeting 2

Evert (Data Display 2) has applied for work as systems developer at IT Bank. The first three lines effectively establish consensus around a negative version of Evert as ‘one of the worst candidates’, and the ‘no offer’ decision, although not explicitly stated, is clear from the beginning. The meeting is characterized by initial agreement.

Data Display 2.

Evert.

1.	C:	Well I think we can agree that this was one of the worst candidates [laugh]. What a big mistake!
2.	E:	No kidding!
3.	C:	Yes, the worst I’ve ever had. Yes, it was (.)
…
7.	C:	We should have closed the interview much earlier. But (.) the thing is you really feel the need to give the candidates a (E: chance) really proper interview. Even if you feel (.) from the moment I opened the door (.) I felt that this (.) He was fifty (.)
8.	E:	Yes, fifty-four, fifty-five
9.	C:	Fifty-four. And when I opened the door [whispers] he talked like he was around sixty-five. You know, incoherent (.) had no (.) clear direction with (.) had no clear intention behind what he said, instead he floated around the whole time, lost his thread, had difficulties getting things said.
10.	E:	I really tried to get him back on track but he kept rambling off all the time so I didn’t get (.) his goals (.) what he really wanted. Instead it was very vague all the time. So (.)
11.	C:	And confused, if you ask me. It happened again, from the moment I opened the door I knew (.) this does not feel good. And still you have to go through with the interview. I think you did a really good presentation, even though you know it’s fruitless you have to give it all to make him walk away from here thinking ‘well that was (.) I think I have a chance here’.
12.	E:	Well somehow you feel that you have to (.) give him the opportunity to do well. It could be that you’re nervous at the start, I think and (.) the first impression is (.) is important (C: Yes) (.) so (.) that might be something that made him nervous. But after a while you notice it’s not just that [laugh] but rather [sigh] (C: much worse) difficult to find (.) It just wasn’t (.) good.
13.	C:	No. There wasn’t any (.) It was hopeless. (E: Right) (.) This was the worst candidate.
14.	E:	Yes I agree.
15.	C:	I guess I could say that I got this impression (.) I got it (.) I mean (.) I got this feeling (E: right away) reading his application. An application where every page was attested (.) implying that ‘I do things by the book’, ‘I’m not so spontaneous’ and everything is very (.) formal. And when I called him in order to book the interview I got exactly the same feeling, you know the feeling that he really wasn’t completely (.) He wasn’t the kind of guy who [forcefully] bang bang bang. Instead very much more [slowly and vaguely] ’well mm yes well that’s fine’. And that in addition to (.) his appearance when he opened the door (.) it felt like it’s already decided. It would have taken a lot to convince me otherwise.
16.	E:	Exactly, because (.) there has to be (.) I mean you have to have a picture of what you want. It’s one of the most important things in the interview, knowing what you want. It doesn’t have to be all that precise but you have to have a direction, you have to know what you want when you’re applying for a job. And this person just didn’t know.
17.	C:	No. So (.)
18.	E:	Also I think you have to be (.) The candidates that I like (.) that I’ve thought were good (.) they’ve been focused (.) assertive about themselves, talked about what they’re good at. This person he (.) he floated around, talking about his kids and (.) It’s good to give a social impression but he was not at all focused on himself in my opinion.
19.	C:	Mm.
		[pause]
20.	C:	No he wasn’t. But you could tell that he was unfocused on the whole. (E: Yes) It was even difficult to go into detail about what his job assignments were or what he had worked with. There was no structured CV (.) which you might have expected with a person who’s as formal as he is. Instead there’s (.) maybe a bit (.) I had to look through all his transcripts from 1947 and on. [laugh] Well that’s what it was like. …
…
61.	E:	Also (.) I got the feeling (.) I got the feeling that he didn’t quite feel at home in his work team and even more so that he didn’t get along with his boss.
62.	C:	His boss had
63.	E:	That was like my first signal, he said (.) he started saying that the boss (.) he wasn’t allowed to do his (.) he felt he wasn’t allowed to implement his ideas. That’s when I got my first sort of (.) strong signal that (.)
64.	C:	‘My boss doesn’t have the energy to keep the group together’ he said also like (.) ‘because my boss seems to be having problems at home’. He was stressed at home, he thought. Not that he knew, but still.
65.	E:	That was a very strong signal too.
66.	C:	Yes.
67.	E:	There I felt that (.) that’s not something you say.
68.	C:	No that’s not something you say.

The selectors elaborate their version of Evert, claiming that he is ‘incoherent’ (line 9), ‘rambling’ and ‘very vague’ (line 10) and ‘confused’ (line 11). He is also portrayed as misreading the interview situation, in that he does not understand that he is expected to know what he wants (line 16) and to talk about himself and what he is good at (line 18), as well as what he has worked with previously (line 20).

The selectors use a number of different information sources as evidence to support their interpretation. Cecilia mentions the telephone call in which she booked the interview (line 15) as well as his unstructured application (lines 15, 20). Later, the interview is used as evidence. Ellen says that the first ‘signal’ was when Evert said that he wasn’t allowed to implement his ideas (line 63) and the second was when he said that the reason for this was that his boss seemed to be having personal problems (line 64). With her ironic comment ‘not that he knew, but still’ (line 64), Cecilia casts doubt on the validity of Evert’s description of his work situation. Cecilia and Ellen also agree that even if Evert’s description is correct, ‘that’s not something you say’ during an interview (lines 67–8).

Meeting 3

Jonas (Data Display 3) is an experienced consultant working for a well-established consultancy. His employer has run into financial trouble so he is applying for a strategy consultant position at IT Consultant. The selectors assemble two different versions of Jonas, and the meeting is thus characterized by initial disagreement. It ends in a ‘no offer’ decision.

Data Display 3.

Jonas.

23.	O:	Can I start? Uh (.) I kind of think that he is (.) he is a generalist. And I can’t find (.) the exact spot where he fits in or what he knows. He is probably good at a lot. (J: Yes) He is a good person, you could probably put him onto anything (.) really. But at the same time (.) I feel that what (.) it could also turn out that he (.) isn’t good at anything and doesn’t fit in anywhere. (S: mm) That’s my (.) misgiving.
24.	J:	Mm, mm.
25.	O:	Uh (.) I also thought (.) that some of his assertions and answers to questions were (.) very general or generally held. Of the type ‘yes, you talk about certain things with a couple of people’.
26.	J:	Mm.
27.	C:	Mm. Like it’s not so deep.
28.	O:	That’s what I mean.
29.	S:	What do you talk about and with whom?
30.	O:	Yes, what do you talk about and with whom? ‘Certain things’.
31.	C:	Exactly.
32.	O:	It just wasn’t clear.
33.	C:	I know.
34.	O:	Even questions (.) he answered in that way. (J: mm) I don’t quite know what it means but (.) but (.) it didn’t feel quite (.) You didn’t get this like ‘yes there you have it’. Uh (.) I will say though that his social competence cannot be mistaken.
…
45.	N:	So I thought the presentation itself was really good. My worry is more that (.) uh (.) he may have worked at places that are more (.) formed already (.) before (.) that it may be difficult for him to deal with (.) situations that are more muddled and he’s supposed to be the one creating it. That’s why I asked those questions towards the end.
46.	O:	Yes.
47.	J:	Mm.
48.	N:	‘Are you the type of person who is interested in fixing the structure of the organization, starting that kind of work?’ And I don’t know.
49.	C:	No. We don’t know.
…
74.	C:	Yes uhm (.) My reflection as I went out of there was that I thought it was yes (.) a pretty good presentation albeit not so deep. But I also feel that he is (.) he is so sales oriented that (.) that it’s like he wants to impress us.
75.	O:	Mm.
76.	C:	So in a sales situation he is good in that sense (.) that you can turn around and be sure that everything will go well (.) but uh (.) how will he function in everyday work situations when (.) conflicts sail up?
77.	S:	How does he (.) handle conflicts? Because, like you, I felt (.) what he actually said during the presentation wasn’t all that innovative.
78.	C:	No.
79.	S:	It’s true that it’s quite rare that something incredibly good comes out of the presentations. He said it in a very good way. In that sense, I would definitely send him in to customers. Uhm (.) but when (.) conflicts sail up.
80.	J:	But these are really (.) obvious things to discuss with references.
81.	S:	All questions we have raised here are reference questions. Absolutely.
82.	N:	Exactly.
83.	S:	Uh (.) Exactly, when conflicts sail up, when things get mucked up and (.) What’s he like then?
84.	N:	Maybe we should just write down one or two questions that we really want answered. Because I don’t think there’s anything we’ve said so far that has been ‘go’ or ‘no go’ in that this is something that leads us to the conclusion (.) ‘no we don’t want him’ or ‘yes we really do’ (C: No) it’s more that we want to check, is this the case? Is he good at handling conflicts, is he good at working when there’s not so much structure and we want him to create structure?
85.	S:	Is he good at being concrete?
86.	N:	Is he good at being concrete when that’s what’s really needed (.) and those kinds of things. Because apart from those worries, like you said, I think as a consultant he is (.) the best candidate I’ve had (J: mm) in that area (.) that’s my opinion.
…
116.	N:	What do you know about his (.) salary request? Has he mentioned anything at all about that?
117.	O:	Yes, I know that he is at the high end. He is in the upper (.) our upper segment (.) in this area.
118.	S:	Do you feel that you’ve straightened him out on that point?
119.	O:	The thing is, when you’re up on such a high level, then he has to be able to (.) Let’s say that he charges two thousand SEK an hour (.) he almost has to (.) be able to do that. That will be the requirement on him.
120.	N:	[in a doubtful tone] What did you say, he has to be able to charge two thousand an hour?
121.	O:	Yes.
122.	N:	He will never be able to do that (.) given that
123.	O:	Well fifteen (.) yes like fifteen hundred. But he has to (.) reach that level.
124.	C:	At the same time, if you have such a high salary then you also have to create business (.)
125.	O:	Opportunities.
126.	C:	Yes.
127.	O:	Yes the expectations (.) expectations will naturally be (C: considerably higher) higher.
…
157.	O:	Uh (.) But he (.) Mats was perfect. I would have sent him right in to customers, direct use in making business and all that. I don’t see that with (.) with Jonas. Therefore (.)
158.	C:	The run-up will be longer. (O: Yes) The run-up is bigger.
		[pause]
159.	O:	And I don’t really see the specific (.) gap in our competence (.) where he fits right in.
160.	C:	Mm.
161.	O:	If we’ll like (.) find something.
162.	N:	No he is a generalist definitely. There (.) there is no doubt about that.
163.	O:	Yes. If he had said that he was like (.) he was senior and had worked with this area for ages and had loads of contacts (.) then I would have hired him. But that’s not the way I feel now. If that were the case, he would have been worth more to us.

After initial discussions about the financial situation at Jonas’s employer, the participants invite Oscar to be the first to have a say about Jonas (line 23). Oskar says that he ‘kind of thinks’ that Jonas is a generalist. He isn’t a candidate who makes Oskar feel ‘yes, there you have it’, but it is difficult to know what that means (line 34). Either Jonas can handle any type of task, or he isn’t good at anything and won’t fit in anywhere (line 23). As the meeting proceeds, the selectors continue to probe into who Jonas is. Nils asks if he is good at creating structure (lines 45–9) and Camilla asks how he handles conflicts (lines 74–9). Eventually Nils and Sophia summarize the unanswered questions (lines 84–6).

A first step to resolving the ambiguity is taken when the selectors discuss Jonas’s salary request (lines 116–27). It provides a context for their interpretation: if they make him an offer, he has to live up to resultant high expectations and they do not think he will be able to do so (lines 118–25). A second step is taken when the selectors compare Jonas to another candidate – the ‘perfect’ Mats (lines 157–8) – who could have been sent ‘right in to customers’, but Oskar doesn’t ‘see that’ with Jonas. The comparison opens for the claim that Jonas is ‘definitely’ a generalist (line 162) and the decision to turn him down (line 163).

Meeting 4

Henry (Data Display 4) has long experience in the IT industry but is currently unemployed, as the firm he worked for has gone bankrupt. He has applied for the post of strategy consultant at IT Consultant. Two different versions emerge, and the selectors attempt to convince each other about which is correct. The meeting, which is characterized by initial disagreement, ends in a ‘no offer’ decision.

Data Display 4.

Henry.

15.	M:	[to O.] You start.
16.	O:	No you’re the odd man out so you start. [laugh]
17.	M:	Ok. Actually I thought he was really bad at presenting and (.) clumsy at first.
		[everyone laughs]
18.	M:	You can’t help but wondering what has he done, what case was he assigned?
19.	C:	Mm all he had done was read through it.
20.	M:	He had read through it and if you really make an effort you actually get the impression that he (.) presented a solution.
21.	O:	Almost.
22.	M:	Almost.
23.	C:	Mm.
24.	M:	And (.) So it wasn’t that great. He (.) You can tell that he hasn’t worked as a consultant.
25.	C:	No that’s the thing, he doesn’t have that experience.
26.	A:	That’s quite clear.
27.	O:	He has no consulting experience.
28.	M:	So (.) It felt like we can say no. On the other hand I thought he got much better with time. He has expert knowledge which um (.) I think can be quite valuable. And I think he can possibly learn how to become a consultant.
29.	C:	Hardly.
30.	M:	He could go down that road.
…
49.	C:	But what (.) what I feel is that he’s the controller (.) the accountant who doesn’t think about where we’re heading, instead he thinks (.) in terms of analysis and what system there is already, what we already have in place, and I feel (.) this is (.) well (.) I feel we don’t have any room for that.
50.	M:	That’s his role today. I mean, the things he mentioned as his (.) Put it this way, what he himself saw as his comparative advantages so to speak (.) they weren’t convincing.
51.	C:	No, no.
52.	A:	I was actually quite surprised by what he said.
53.	C:	They weren’t convincing. Because in his presentation (.) I was thinking, if I were the client, I would (.) He wouldn’t even have been let in. And if he did show up I would have thrown him out. Because he didn’t make a contribution. (O: mm) Every time we asked what do you do, what do you want, we didn’t get any (.) satisfactory answer.
…
58.	C:	He kept saying possibly, a little, maybe, you might. He is too vague you know (.) to be (.) If you’re going to present something to someone you have to believe in it yourself (.) and it doesn’t feel like he actually believed in anything he said to me.
59.	O:	Mm. Because what I had expected was that he would say like ‘Ok, in the financial world there are three things that are important.’
60.	C:	Yes.
61.	O:	‘And the trend (.) and the trend today is that the third thing is more important than the first.’
62.	A:	That’s right.
63.	O:	‘And that’s why I’ve built my analysis on (.) dividing the market according to the following five (.) aspects. And considering the customers’ positioning, they should do the following.’ I’d expected a comment like
64.	M:	[irritated tone] He (.) he’s been IT manager you know.
65.	O:	Yes. And?
66.	M:	And not consultant.
67.	O:	Yeah, well
…
74.	M:	Like I said, he does have some (.) specific knowledge, and besides you could tell that he was extremely nervous.
75.	C:	Definitely! I’ve rarely seen a (.) person his age that nervous. He was soaked in sweat, did you see, when he stood up.
76.	M:	Yes I did see.
77.	C:	His pants were all wet! God I felt sorry for him. We should have taken a break.
78.	A:	He was very likeable you know. That’s what’s so frustrating.
79.	M:	He did improve when he felt a bit more (.) relaxed a bit towards the end.
80.	O:	Yeah yeah (.) right.
81.	C:	And he kept laughing nervously.
		[A. laughs nervously]
82.	C:	Ugh. [jokingly] Now we know how things would go if he visited customers.
83.	M:	Like I said, he’s not perfect.
84.	C:	[with emphasis] No.
85.	O:	Noo.
86.	M:	Simple, he’s out.
87.	O:	Yes. Yes. Ok.
88.	M:	Yes. No problem. I (.) I just felt that he (.) I wouldn’t take him as consultant either but if we (.)
89.	O:	Yes.

An initial show of hands indicates that only Martin is in favour of making Henry an offer, so Martin is the ‘odd man out’ (line 16). He acknowledges that Henry gave a ‘bad’ and ‘clumsy’ impression (line 17). He claims that although Henry hasn’t worked as a consultant (line 24), he does have ‘valuable’ knowledge and the potential to ‘learn how to become’ one (line 28). The other selectors, however, jointly propagate a version of Henry as someone who ‘hardly’ has the potential to learn (line 29). This version is elaborated when Henry is described as a ‘controller’ who ‘doesn’t think about where we’re heading’ (line 49). Martin defends him, arguing that that’s because he has another role today and that he didn’t present himself favourably (line 50). Rather than accepting this as mitigating circumstances, the others see it as evidence that Henry is unsuited for consulting work, since it involves direct interaction with clients (lines 51–3).

Along the same lines, all but Martin claim that Henry is too ‘vague’, providing support from Henry’s presentation (lines 58–63). Martin, now irritated, interrupts and again remarks that Henry is a former IT manager (line 64), but the argument falls on deaf ears (lines 65–7). Martin tries once again to support his interpretation by pointing out that Henry has ‘specific knowledge’ and was ‘extremely nervous’ (line 74) and that he improved when he ‘relaxed a bit’ (line 79). However, the meaning of his nervousness is also contested; rather than bringing their interpretation closer to Martin’s, it makes them all the more convinced that Henry is unsuited (lines 75–82). Finally, Martin consents to the ‘no offer’ decision (line 86–9).

Selection decision making in practice

Building on our interpretation in the previous section, we here discuss four discursive processes that together provide an in-depth description of how selectors make decisions about candidates in practice. We also discuss differences in how these processes play out depending on the basic form of the meeting: initial agreement or initial disagreement. These results are summarized in Table 3 and elaborated below.

Table 3.

Selection decision making in practice.

	Two basic forms of selection decision making meetings
Discursive processes	Meetings characterized by initial agreement	Meetings characterized by initial disagreement
Assembling versions of the candidates	- selectors describe the candidates’ attributes	- candidates’ attributes and/or their local meaning are ambiguous
	- selectors elaborate the local meaning of the attributes	- selectors get ‘snared’ in the interpretation process
	- candidates are constituted as persons with certain attributes

Establishing the versions of the candidates as factual	- selectors root their versions in an external reality by mobilising evidence from different sources	- selectors mobilise evidence, but it does not point unambiguously to one version of the candidate

Reaching selection decisions	- ‘knowing’ who the candidates are, selectors ‘see’ obvious selection decisions	- the versions of the candidates are initially not clear-cut
Reaching selection decisions		- selectors reach selection decisions by employing ad hoc practices such as reconstituting or ignoring critical aspects of the situation

Using selection tools as sensemaking devices	- selectors use selection tools as sensemaking devices that help them mould their impressions of the candidates into specific versions

Assembling versions of the candidates

A key concern for the selectors is to assess the candidates and assemble versions of ‘what they are like’ in the sense of who they are and what they can do. In the meetings characterized by initial agreement (DD 1 and 2), the selectors typically assemble versions of the candidate in a smooth manner. They do so by choosing to discuss certain attributes of the candidates. They describe Gustav as secure, reserved, willing to learn and capable of delivering (DD 1) and Evert as incoherent, rambling and vague (DD 2). In choosing to discuss these attributes and not others (Garfinkel, 1967; Heritage, 1984, pp. 150–1), the selectors assemble specific versions of Gustav and Evert and thereby constitute them as persons with certain attributes. Gustav is interpreted as being good at what he does and Evert as one of the worst candidates.

Although the attributes are descriptive, they lend themselves to several meanings and selectors establish their specific sense when they use them in concrete selection situations to describe specific candidates. For example, the sense of Evert’s incoherency (DD 2, line 9) is elaborated as Cecilia successively describes him as having no clear direction, no clear intention, floating around and losing his thread. Their inherent indexicality is most clearly recognizable when the attributes and the version do not match at first glance. For example, Gustav is ‘not particularly adaptable’ but in context this seemingly negative attribute means that he is secure (DD 1, line 8). Likewise, his lack of assertiveness is contrasted to his willingness to focus on one area. Assertiveness has been decisive in other cases; in this case, it is more important that he ‘wants to learn’ (DD 1, lines 41–4).

In describing the candidates’ attributes and giving them local meaning, the selectors are relying on the first of the two parts that make up the documentary method of interpretation (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 78). When describing Gustav as keeping a low profile and being secure in what he does (DD 1, lines 1–8), the selectors begin to establish an underlying pattern of Gustav as someone who is good at what he does. When describing Evert as incoherent and vague (DD 2, lines 7–20), the selectors confirm a presumed version of Evert as unfocused. Once a version of the candidate is ‘known’, the selectors use it to interpret other attributes that are brought to light, which is the second part of the interpretation process (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 78). In DD 1, the selectors use their version of Gustav as a strong candidate to explain his divergences from ‘normal’ interview behaviour (lines 63–9). In DD 2, the selectors use their version of Evert as unfocused to explain why there was no structured CV (line 20). In this manner, the selectors discursively build an overall picture from separate parts and, at the same time, interpret separate parts in the light of the overall picture.

In meetings characterized by initial disagreement (DD 3 and 4) selectors experience instead some difficulty in establishing the candidates’ attributes. The selectors in DD 3 make repeated attempts to reach a conclusive interpretation of Jonas’s attributes and establish an underlying pattern of who he is. Not until line 162 is a definitive claim made. In DD 4, the meaning of the fact that Henry is a former IT manager remains contested until Martin gives in (line 83). This ambiguity causes selectors to get ‘snared’ in the interpretation process (Heritage, 1984, pp. 84–97) and employ ad hoc practices to resolve the situation (Wieder, 1970), as further explored below (see Reaching selection decisions).

Establishing the versions of the candidates as factual

Closely intertwined with the process of assembling versions of the candidates is one of establishing these versions as factual. This is key, since the selectors, as professionals, are concerned to show that their assessments are based on facts and that they are well-informed (Heritage, 1984, p. 158).

In order to establish the assembled versions as factual rather than as one of many possible versions, the selectors mobilize evidence by continually referring to various information sources. In the meetings characterized by initial agreement, selectors are able to mobilize supporting evidence in a coherent manner from the start of the meetings. In DD 1, the version of Gustav as ‘good at what he does’ is supported when Ludvig mobilizes Gustav’s personality profile as evidence that he has a ‘capacity and will to deliver’ and ‘a pretty strong engine’ (lines 46–7). Similarly, Gustav’s dress and relaxed behaviour during the interview are used to indicate that he is a strong candidate when Ludvig states that ‘he didn’t have to try to impress us’ (line 69). In DD 2, the version of Evert as incoherent, evasive and socially maladaptive is made factual through references to telephone contact (line 15), the application (lines 15, 20) as well as graphic descriptions of what Evert said and did during the interview. For example, Cecilia refers in a rather theatrical manner to her first impressions of Evert that were clear ‘from the moment [she] opened the door’ (lines 7–9).

When mobilizing evidence in this manner, the selectors establish their versions of the candidates as factual by rooting them in an external reality evident to any observer and thereby ostensibly reducing the need for interpretation (Heritage, 1984, pp. 157–8). Moreover, their way of mobilizing evidence contributes to this effect (Billig, 1996; Edwards, 1997; Potter, 1996). For example, Cecilia’s comment ‘His boss had’ (line 62) works as a starting shot for a description that the selectors then take turns delivering. The repetition of ‘that’s not something you say’ (lines 67–8) strengthens the sense of joint description.

Selectors in meetings characterized by initial disagreement also attempt to strengthen their versions’ facticity, but they are unable to mobilize evidence that unambiguously points to one version. Each piece of evidence mobilized by the selectors in DD 3, e.g. that Jonas’s assertions in the interview were generally held (lines 25–34), leaves them with unanswered questions about what type of person Jonas is. Nothing they say is ‘go’ or ‘no go’ (line 84). In DD 4, the selectors agree that Henry’s performance during the interview was poor (lines 17–24). Despite this, Martin attempts to produce evidence that supports his version of Henry as employable: he has ‘valuable’, ‘specific’ knowledge (lines 28 and 74), his role has been that of IT manager (lines 24 and 64), he was ‘extremely nervous’ (line 74), and he improved as the interview progressed (lines 28 and 79). However, the other selectors use each of these pieces of evidence to support their version of Henry as unsuited. The selectors in these meetings are thus initially unsuccessful in eliminating the need for interpretation.

Reaching selection decisions

Although assembling versions of the candidates and establishing them as factual are essential in the decision making process, the formal purpose of the meetings is to reach selection decisions. In the meetings characterized by initial agreement, the first two processes are closely intertwined with the third. Through the documentary method of interpretation, the candidate is interpreted on the basis of certain information at the same time as the interpretation highlights the specific information in question as essential to understanding the candidate (Leiter, 1974). Hence, the version of the candidate reflexively constitutes the candidate as a person with certain definitive attributes. The selectors do not treat their version of Gustav as good at what he does (DD 1), or their version of Evert as the worst candidate (DD 2), as one of many possible versions. These versions are, for the moment and in the local situation, true pictures of what type of people they are. This does not mean that there are no question marks regarding the candidate’s attributes or the mobilized evidence (e.g. DD 1, lines 43 and 68; DD 2, line 20), but that the selectors are able to resolve them in such a way as to sustain the established versions. ‘Knowing’ whom Gustav and Evert are, the selectors ‘see’ obvious selection decisions and easily make decision claims (DD 1, lines 39–40; DD 2, line 15).

In the meetings characterized by initial disagreement, the versions of the candidates are considerably less clear-cut. Jonas (DD 3) can either handle any type of task, or isn’t good at anything. As former IT manager Henry (DD 4) either has valuable knowledge or is entirely unsuitable. ‘Confronted with having to make a choice’ (Wieder, 1970, p. 129), the selectors employ ad hoc practices to resolve the situation in a way that makes it possible for them to reach decisions (Garfinkel, 1967, pp. 76–103; Zimmerman, 1970). In DD 3, Jonas’s salary request and the comparison with Mats reconstruct the situation and open the way for the ‘no offer’ decision. Once reached, the decision enables the selectors to interpret Jonas’s attributes in a particular way and, thus, assemble a specific version of Jonas as unemployable (lines 158–63). Simultaneously the attributes become ‘proof’ that the right decision has been made. In DD 4, the selectors instead reach a decision by ignoring that they interpret Henry differently. Although the selectors’ discussions could go on endlessly (Garfinkel, 1967, pp. 24–31), their task is not to agree on a fully detailed candidate description, whatever the cost. Martin may not be convinced that the others’ version is more correct than his own is but he ‘agrees to disagree’, as a result of which they are able to put an end to discussions and reach the ‘no offer’ decision (lines 83–9). By reconstructing the situation, ignoring critical aspects or other such practices, the selectors are thus able to avoid difficulties and move the decision making process forward, even in the face of ambiguity, while also sustaining a sense of intelligibility.

Using selection tools as sensemaking devices

As discussed above, the selectors in all the meetings continually refer to selection tools they have used, primarily the employment interview but also others such as selection criteria and personality tests. How these selection tools are used in decision making merits attention due to the central role they are assigned in the dominant approaches to employee selection.

In DD 1, Gustav’s presumed personality profile is used as an explanatory resource several times during the meeting (lines 45–9, 63–4). Since the selectors do not have access to the test results yet, the personality test cannot be said to provide an objective description of Gustav, nor can it be used as grounds for decision making in any formal sense. However, the distinction between the ‘real’ and the ‘presumed’, although noted (lines 26–30), is uninteresting to the selectors in their continued discussions. Regardless of whether the profile is objective and real or not, it functions as a sensemaking device that helps the selectors establish a version of Gustav as someone who is ‘good at what he does’ and reach their decision to make him an offer.

In a similar way, the case interview is central in DD 3 and 4. Referring to Jonas’s presentation, the selectors make sense of Jonas as a fairly skilled consultant (DD 3, lines 45, 74, 79, 86). The candidate’s ability to take a consultative role is said to be the most important selection criterion in IT Consultant, yet in view of doubts raised regarding more internally oriented skills (lines 45 and 76) a suggestion to make him an offer is never brought up. In DD 4, Martin instead considers making Henry an offer (line 28) although they all agree that his case presentation was poor (lines 17–24).

Using personality profiles, case interviews and other selection tools as sensemaking devices helps selectors reconstitute the unfolding selection process by moulding myriad impressions of the candidates into successively more specific versions. This reduces ambiguity and lays a foundation for the next action, be it making a certain decision or explaining the reasons for making a certain decision. As is particularly clear in DD 3 and 4, these actions are not determined by the selection tools, as presumed by dominant approaches to selection (e.g. Anastasi & Urbina, 1997; Compton et al., 2009; Gatewood et al., 2010) where tools are seen as a set of rules that dictate the production of action. Instead, the rules are used as interpretive schemes that identify ‘what has occurred’, and establish a range of possible next actions (Heritage, 1987; Leiter, 1980; Wieder, 1974). Regardless of the results the tools show, selectors are thus always facing a choice. They can comply with the rules, adjust them or even disregard them, depending on how they interpret the particular situation in which they find themselves (Boden, 1994; Leiter, 1974; Zimmerman, 1970). Hence, the selectors orient towards, rather than strictly follow, the rules that the selection tools represent.

Practical deliberation: Selection decision making as it occurs in situ

We propose ‘practical deliberation’ as an overarching conceptualization of how selection decision making takes place in situ. The selectors’ practical deliberations centre around two discursive constructs: the versions of the candidates and the selection decisions. The selectors use the documentary method to put together ‘what the candidate is like’ by describing the candidate’s attributes and giving these attributes local meaning. However, they also interpret new attributes in terms of the presupposed versions, actively evaluating whether the versions fit with what they already ‘know’. The versions may thus, at any given moment, be subject to revision. Practical deliberation also involves grounding the versions in an external reality by mobilizing evidence in the form of information obtained from different sources. The versions constructed in this manner are not general but local pictures of the candidates, created specifically for the purpose of making selection decisions. Often, the selection decisions are based on these local versions but sometimes the versions are based on the decisions made. In fact, our analysis provides no general rule about which is produced first, the version or the decision.

Making the version of the candidate and the decision meaningfully consistent with each other is a central feature of practical deliberation. The selectors’ work of fitting together versions and decisions ties into how they orient toward different temporal dimensions of sensemaking processes: the past, the present and the future (Boden, 1994; Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Gephart et al., 2010). The present is the site of ‘practical decision making in face to face, everyday life contexts’ (Gephart et al., 2010, p. 280) in which actors, on the one hand, retrospectively orient towards the past and what has happened and, on the other, prospectively orient towards the future and possible trajectories of action. As Heritage (1983, pp. 119–120) points out, future trajectories are highly influenced by standards of accountability that ‘constrain the range of actions which an actor may be prepared to undertake’. Together, this ‘chordal triad’ (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 972) of temporal dimensions indicates that actors are ‘constantly and reflexively tying past to future through present orientations’ (Boden, 1994, p. 48).

The retrospective-prospective orientation means that the selectors simultaneously consider the version of the candidate and the selection decision in the light of available standards of accountability. In assembling a certain version of the candidate, the selectors rehearse a certain selection decision. Knowing that they are responsible for the decisions they make and that they may be asked to account for them, they fit their version with the meaningfully consistent decision. Likewise, in making a certain selection decision, the selectors rehearse a certain version of the candidate; they fit their decision with the meaningfully consistent version. In the meetings characterized by initial agreement, achieving this fit is a smooth process that does not require many rehearsals. In the meetings characterized by initial disagreement, however, there is more work involved in the sense that the revisions of the versions and decisions are more substantial.

In sum, practical deliberation conceptualizes the selectors’ situated work of simultaneously orienting toward the version of the candidate and the selection decision, all while both are being constructed during the decision meetings. The selectors reason in a methodical manner: they use selection tools to interpret the candidates, discuss the candidates’ attributes and establish what they mean and how important they are in relation to other attributes; they mobilize information that supports their versions as factual; they try the versions and decisions to make sure they fit together.

Conclusion

In this study we have investigated how selection decision making takes place in practice by adopting a combined ethnomethodological-discourse analytical approach and pursuing the question: what discursive processes and considerations are selectors engaged in when making decisions about whether a candidate should be offered a job? The results show that selection decision making in situ takes two basic forms, one characterized by initial agreement and one by initial disagreement, and that each form is defined by ongoing practical deliberation among selectors. The deliberation involves four interrelated discursive processes: assembling versions of the candidates; establishing the versions of the candidates as factual; reaching selection decisions; and using selection tools as sensemaking devices.

These findings make several contributions. First, and most important, the results challenge the dominant psychometric and social process approaches to selection and several of their underlying assumptions in significant ways. Both approaches conceptualize selection decision making as a step-by-step process that produces the optimal decision. In contrast, the results from this study suggest that selection decision making is defined by ongoing practical deliberation in which selectors interactively make sense of and make decisions about candidates and orient towards making their constructions of the candidates and the selection decisions meaningfully consistent with each other. Importantly, this practical deliberation varies depending on whether the selection decision is characterized by initial agreement or initial disagreement.

Moreover, the results challenge the essentialist assumption that candidates possess intrinsic attributes, which are uncovered through the selection process. Instead, selectors actively construct local versions of the candidates that for all practical purposes make the candidates into individuals with certain definite attributes. That is, selectors interpret candidates on the basis of certain information and, at the same time, their interpretations reflexively highlight this specific information as essential to understanding the candidates. We therefore argue that it is more meaningful to speak of how information about candidates is mobilized and made relevant than how it is collected and analysed.

The results also challenge the assumption that selection tools can be used to identify and objectively measure candidates’ attributes and, based on that, decide which of the candidates best match the job requirements. Instead of functioning as objective measurement instruments, selection tools are used as sensemaking devices to make sense of, and produce factual versions of, the candidates. Consequently, we argue that selection tools should also be developed and evaluated in terms of the extent to which they facilitate sensemaking processes, rather than their capacity to provide objective descriptions of candidates.

Furthermore, by focusing on selection tools and the steps leading up to decision making, rather than decision making per se, the dominant approaches have in many ways taken out the selectors from selection decision making. Our study illustrates how decision making is achieved through interaction and how understanding the intersubjective sensemaking processes of selectors is essential for understanding how decision making is accomplished, as it unfolds moment by moment. Hence, the results not only challenge existing theories of employee selection but also go beyond them by ‘putting people back in’, that is, by recognizing and taking seriously ‘the practical activities of real people engaged in concrete situations of social action’ (Boden, 1994, p. 10).

Second, previous interpretive studies have maintained that selection decision making is primarily retrospective (e.g. Salaman & Thompson, 1978; Silverman & Jones, 1976) in the sense that selection decisions made on certain grounds are justified ex post facto on other grounds. Although our results confirm a retrospective orientation, they also reveal a prospective orientation implicated in selection decisions. Since selectors always find themselves in the practical circumstances of an ongoing now, retrospective and prospective orientations will, in a process of ‘continual reevaluation’ (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 989), be reviewed as the circumstances change. Regardless of their basic form, the unfolding selection meetings show that there was room for selectors to challenge and indeed revise both the version of the candidate and the selection decision. When the context changes, so does the interpretation. Hence, what occurs during selection meetings is not only retrospective rewriting of history but also prospective forming of the future. We argue that there is an openness regarding selection decision meetings that Silverman and Jones (1976), with their focus on the outcome, did not account for.

Third, the combined ethnomethodogical-discourse analytical approach offers an investigative framework that can be used to explore in situ not only selection decision making but also other human resource management (HRM) practices such as performance appraisal and competence assessment. Real-time studies of interactional detail contribute to knowledge of how HRM practices are accomplished in ordinary settings and may thus reduce the disturbing discrepancy between what academic research claims is efficient and what is regarded as efficient and valued by practitioners (e.g. Anderson et al., 2001; Ryan & Tippins, 2004; Rynes et al., 2002). In this sense the study also contributes more broadly to the growing field of critical HRM research (e.g. Legge, 1995, 1999; Steyaert & Janssens, 1999; Townley, 1993, 1994; Watson, 2004, 2010) and its call for more non-prescriptive studies of HRM in organizations. In particular, real-time studies are likely to enable researchers to better ‘grasp the logic of practice’ (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011) underlying various HRM practices in organizations and, thus, contribute to the development of theories more relevant to HRM practice. More generally, the combined ethnomethodological-discourse analytical approach and its findings also contribute to recent calls within organization studies for more ethnomethodologically informed research of real-time occurrences (Llewellyn & Hindmarsh, 2010; Samra-Fredericks & Bargiela-Chiappini, 2008).

Implications for research on employee selection

The result that selection decision making is accomplished through selectors’ ongoing practical deliberation, rather than in a step-wise manner, has some major implications for employee selection research. One of the most significant concerns the point of departure for studying selection decision making in practice. Instead of using individual candidates and their attributes together with a focus on fit between candidate and job/organization, or the selection outcome as the unit of analysis, as proposed by existing approaches, the ethnomethodological-discourse analytical approach and its results suggest taking the discourse of actual selection decision making processes as the point of departure. The results show that such a shift enables us to generate significantly more detailed descriptions of what processes are actually involved and how selection tools are actually used in selection decision making as it occurs in situ. Such descriptions are likely to be crucial for being able to develop and evaluate procedures and tools that enable practitioners to improve selection decisions in organizations.

Some suggestions for future research

The study also points to several areas for further research. One is to explore in more detail how the two decision making forms (initial agreement and initial disagreement) lead to different trajectories of action. Another is to investigate further how different selection tools are used as sensemaking devices in selection decision making. Yet another is to examine the particular power and politics games that are likely to go on in selection decision meetings. For example, some selection committee members may try to dominate the process in various ways. While we, in this study, primarily focused on selection decision making in its local context, it is also necessary to investigate how the broader organizational context may shape the actual selection process.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We warmly thank Senior Editor Roger Dunbar and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and constructive feedback on our paper.

Funding

This research was supported by the Swedish Council for Work Life Research.

Author biographies

Pernilla Bolander is Assistant Professor at the Department of Management and Organization at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Her research interests include processes of assessing competence, applications of Talent Management in organizations as well as practices and consequences of quantification within Human Resource Management.

Jörgen Sandberg is Professor in the School of Business at the University of Queensland, Australia. His research interests include competence and learning in organizations, leadership, practice-based research, qualitative research methods and philosophy of science. His work has appeared in several journals, including Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Management Studies and Organisational Research Methods. His most recent book (co-authored with Mats Alvesson) is Constructing research questions: Doing interesting research (Sage 2013). He is currently carrying out research on professional practice and its development.

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