Telling stories to communicate the value of the pre-employment structured job interview

In an effort to bridge the scientist–practitioner gap in the employee selection, some researchers have advocated telling stories to better communicate the value of evidence-based hiring practices to human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we conducted two experiments that examine the efficacy of storytelling for overcoming managers’ resistance to use structured job interviews. In two experiments, we found that participants who read a story regarding the effectiveness of structured interviews, as opposed to receiving evidence-based advice, reported more favorable attitudes toward structured job interviews. Serial mediation analysis revealed that the observed attitude change was mediated by an increase in narrative transportation and reduction in counterarguing. Implications for using stories in communicating the value of evidence-based HR practices are discussed.