«The Primacy Effect»: The critical importance of the first interview

There's a well-known saying: «You never get a second chance to make a first impression.» We are conditioned to rely on our first impressions, a phenomenon known as the primacy effect. How can this cognitive bias impact recruitment, and how can it be avoided? Insights are provided by Auguste Dumouilla, a researcher in vocational psychology at JobTeaser.

What is the Primacy Bias?

The primacy effect refers to the phenomenon where information perceived at the beginning of an interaction is remembered better than information that follows. Thus, in a job interview, the recruiter will vividly remember the candidate's appearance, clothing, posture, and smile during their initial meeting or handshake (or elbow touch). The brain gives more importance to the first pieces of information received, as these are stored in long-term memory, which has a larger capacity than short-term memory, which quickly becomes saturated with information.

Read our tips for circumventing these biases in our recruitment guide.

Discovery of the Primacy Cognitive Bias: Solomon Asch's experiment

Psychologist Solomon Asch highlighted the primacy bias in the mid-1940s through an experiment. Two groups of participants were given the same personality traits of a person and asked to judge them. One group received a list with positive traits first, while the other had the same list but with negative traits first.

The results were surprising. Instead of an equivalent judgment, the group that read positive adjectives first judged the person more favorably than the group that read negative words first.

The impact of Primacy Bias in recruitment

The primacy effect is part of the family of memory biases. It's often associated with the recency effect, which is the tendency to remember the last pieces of information because short-term memory is still active. In recruitment, these biases emphasize the first and last impressions, significantly affecting the objectivity of recruitment. They can distract the recruiter from a thorough analysis of skills and might deny a second chance to a candidate who made a mediocre first impression, even if they demonstrate positive characteristics later. This traps the person in a misrepresentation that might not align with the real needs identified in the job analysis.

How to Avoid this Cognitive Bias?

To minimize the impact of the primacy bias in recruitment, companies can:

Implement structured and standardized recruitments 

to combat the power of 'gut feeling,' justify decisions, and base them on concrete facts (evaluation grids, structured interviews, etc.).

Educate and train recruiters on two main aspects

understanding the mechanisms of cognitive biases to realize that they can't be fought alone, but rather a framework can be established to limit their harmful effects, and a legislative reminder of the penalties for discrimination during recruitment.

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