Yes, You're Hired. No, We Don't Need To Meet You

There may be as many as one million more jobs than members of the US workforce. And research says interviews are not useful predictors of future success. So, welcome, whatever you said your name is...JL

Chip Cutter reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Employers trying to lure workers in the tightest job market since 1969 are hiring candidates sight unseen, at times after one phone interview. The practice has become most common in retail, although it is spreading among in demand white-collar roles, such as engineers, IT professionals and teachers. “You aren’t verifying that the person who is on the phone is the person who’s going to show up” (but) most companies are “so bad at interviewing, and the interviews are so full of bias, it’s not crazy to ignore them altogether.”
Want a job? Just pick up the phone.
That’s what 22-year-old Jamari Powell did in September after applying to Macy’s outside Portland, Ore. He got an email within 12 hours of submitting his online application. The message: We’re calling soon, so answer the phone.
After a 25-minute interview, Mr. Powell said he was offered a full-time seasonal sales job at $12.25 an hour.

“It was a little weird,” he said. “You’re kind of like: ‘Is this real?’ It kind of feels like a scam almost.”
Eager employers trying to lure workers in the tightest job market since 1969 are hiring some candidates sight unseen, at times after one phone interview. The practice has become most common in seasonal work, particularly retail, although it is spreading among certain in-demand white-collar roles, such as engineers, IT professionals and teachers.
Macy’s, which continues to do in-person interviews, fills more than a third of its in-store jobs within 48 hours, and is looking to expand its phone interview hiring process, said a spokeswoman. We are “providing candidates with a fast and easy hiring process,” she said. Ashley Jurak, a 19-year-old student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, offered to drive 90 minutes to her hometown of Dallas for an in-store interview with Bath & Body Works as she tried to nail down a position for the holiday break. The hiring manager told her she had clinched it over the phone.
When she arrived for her first day of work, a manager who had seen her online said, “You do look just like your picture,” Ms. Jurak recalls. L Brands , which owns Bath & Body Works, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In September, Tamia Howze, a 21-year-old hospitality and tourism major at North Carolina Central University, got a job at a catering company after one 30-minute phone interview. The company needed to staff up for the busy fall wedding season, she said. The pay, $13 an hour plus tips, exceeded her wages at a local hotel.
“I was kind of shocked,” Ms. Howze said of getting hired by phone. “I’m like, you know, should I be worried that I got hired?”

In a Reddit forum dedicated to Boeing Co ., multiple users described being hired after phone interviews for entry-level positions. Former Boeing recruiters said the company hired sight unseen, particularly for tough-to-fill technical positions and engineering roles.
A Boeing spokeswoman said the company aims to hire a diverse workforce from the most qualified pool. “With almost 1 million applicants a year, we strive to create a contemporary candidate experience that uses the most current practices in candidate assessment,” she said.
Jodi Dean, an elementary English language development teacher in Tulsa, Okla., completed one phone interview with a school principal and received a conditional job offer days later. Ms. Dean, then a self-employed marketing consultant near Fort Wayne, Ind., had occasionally worked as a substitute teacher.
Getting hired sight unseen didn’t faze her because as a consultant she had maintained plenty of relationships by phone, working with people “I’ve never met in my life,” she said. “That’s what the 21st century is.”
Oklahoma faces a widespread teacher shortage, forcing Tulsa Public Schools to think “outside the box,” district spokeswoman Emma Garrett Nelson said. Ms. Dean, who received emergency state approval to teach, expects to be fully certified by May.
The Labor Department reported roughly a million more job openings than unemployed Americans at the end of September. The unemployment rate is at a 49-year low of 3.7%.
Tom Thurlow, of iRiS Recruiting Solutions near Indianapolis, said a client hired a systems engineer in August after one phone call and some notes Mr. Thurlow provided. The candidate had experience with software few are familiar with, and the client, in the automotive industry, had to replace a critical employee.
“I’ve had some pretty quick hires, but this is the first time a client hired someone sight unseen,” he said.
CVS Health is piloting a program in which workers at some distribution centers don’t meet with a human until the day they start their jobs. Recruiters base hiring on candidates’ performance in a “virtual job tryout” and online assessment.
CVS still requires in-person interviews for jobs such as cashiers and corporate positions, said Jeffrey Lackey, vice president of talent acquisition at CVS Health. Reducing the time it takes to hire a qualified employee is critical when an applicant could snag a job elsewhere, he says. “Any recruiter worth their salt knows that time kills all deals.”
Malik Bruce, an 18-year-old who lives near Atlanta, applied in August to work for in-flight caterer Gate Gourmet. The company asked him for a phone interview, but to his surprise, there was no human on the line. Mr. Bruce recorded answers to questions from an automated system asking him to describe himself and his future plans.
“I was confused,” he said. “You can’t have a conversation with a robot.”
He was invited for an in-person interview, but said when he arrived, he and other applicants were informed they had landed jobs. “We all kind of looked around at each other, like, I thought this was an interview,” Mr. Bruce said.
Their offers were conditional on background checks and drug tests, said Mr. Bruce, who has since left the job to pursue a degree in graphic design. Gate Gourmet wouldn’t comment.
Among the downsides: Phone interviews mean companies don’t know how an employee may interact with colleagues or customers. In addition, “you aren’t verifying that the person who is on the phone is the person who’s going to show up” for the job, said Kristin Miller, a director of recruiting in Atlanta.
Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said multiple personal interviews are overrated. Most companies, he said, are “so bad at interviewing, and the interviews are so full of bias, that it’s not crazy to just ignore them altogether.”
Even companies with a history of hiring by phone find themselves trying to speed up the process. Wisconsin-based Roehl Transport Inc. hires 2,000 truck drivers annually. Recently, recruiters began pulling driving records and transportation-employment histories while interviewing experienced drivers by phone, to clarify discrepancies in the moment.
“It is so competitive, we’ve got to be able to make an informed decision as quickly as possible,” says Tim Norlin, the company’s vice president of driver employment.