INTERVIEW PROCESS     RECRUITMENT     HIRING STRATEGY

Singapore - It's not unusual to hear of HR placing interviewees in a simulated scenario similar to the job's environment to see how they would respond to pressure. But do stress tests really help select the best employees for the company?

HR director of One°15 Marina Club Jimmy Png is an advocate for including stress tests whenever he interviews job candidates. He believes that helps him size up their suitability for the role and most importantly, the ideal values the company wants in its employees. For instance, being in the hospitality industry, the company values a high level of patience in its employees so Png would sometimes deliberately test his interviewees' patience. There are even times where they could be kept waiting under the sun or in a noisy spot. "After making the guy wait for half an hour or one hour, if the guy cannot wait, he walks off. He may look at it as this employer is terrible."

But before the candidate walks off, Png would stop that person, apologise and start the interview. After all, besides testing for patience, he has seen how the candidate had responded to being kept waiting. Did he or she ask questions about the company? Did he walk around to occupy his time? Did she pick up something to read or start a conversation with someone? Png says, "We look for all these little things. We'd pick up things we can't find during the interview [because] they usually give you the correct answers."

David Walsh, group head of HR for MasterCard Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa region, on the other hand, is not a big fan of interview stress tests. "I don't like those games," he says. "I don't think it adds any value because you can assess how people have been stressed by the kind of jobs they had, the kind of experiences they had from the interview process."

But Walsh understands why some organisations include stress tests in their interviews. There are certain business functions that could require potential employees to cope well with stress when some work scenarios occur. As for companies that do conduct "in tray exercises", Walsh says they need to at least respect interviewees' time by making sure the test is well-modelled and they are told upfront about it. "If the individual's here to see you for an hour, maybe they have another commitment, you can play your game as a manager or a company but you are really not respecting the individual."

TÜV SÜD Asia Pacific's senior vice president of regional human resources Kok Ee Lan concurs because that might potentially cost the company a good talent. "If I'm a good candidate and I don't have a good experience with the interviewers, I am so put off, I will never come back."

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