Common factors (Biases) that may make inappropriate selection choice during interviewing candidates.

• Stereotyping: Stereotyping involves forming generalized opinions about how people of a given gender, religion, or race appear, think, act, feel, or respond.

• First-impression error: With the first-impression error, the interviewer makes snap judgments and lets his or her first impression (either positive or negative) cloud the entire interview.

• Negative emphasis: This involves rejecting a candidate based on a small amount of negative information.

• Halo/horn effect: In this situation, the interviewer allows one strong point that he or she values highly to overshadow all other information. When this works in the candidate’s favor, it is called halo effect. When it works in the opposite direction, with the interviewer judging the potential employee unfavorably in all areas on the basis of one trait, it is called the horn effect.

• Nonverbal bias: In this situation, unfair emphasis is placed on nonverbal cues that are unrelated to job performance.

• Contrast effect: With the contrast effect, strong candidates who interview after weak ones may appear even more qualified than they actually are because of the contrast.

• Similar –to-me error: This involves picking candidates based on personal characteristics that they share with the interviewer rather than job-related criteria.