The majority of people interviewing candidates for a job have poor interviewing technique which results in picking the wrong person and can have a direct impact on the bottom line.

That's the message from a survey of heads of HR conduced for A&DC, which revealed that 74% of interviewers had poor technique and 33% are poorly trained. Of those questioned, 35% said poor interviewing resulted in poor performance from employees and 24% thought it affected the company's financial performance.

The impact of a bad interviewing style doesn't stop there. Sixteen percent of those polled said it resulted in candidates leaving interviews with a bad impression of the company, 9% thought it wasted both time and money and 7% claimed it created disaffection among existing staff.

"Interviewing well is a skill that is difficult to consistently get right across the entire organisation, whether it's large or small," said Rory Fidgeon, senior consultant occupational psychologist for A&DC.

"The survey shows that few heads of HR see their people interviewing well, which backs up the stories we hear of so many interviewing with ‘gut feeling' as their main guide. Using this type of judgement in interviews doesn't work consistently. The results show huge scope to improve and simplify the interviewing process."

The main barrier to effective interviewing was a lack of training, according to a third of respondents, while 17% pointed to a lack of time.

A&DC recommends using competency-based interviews where evidence of an individual's past behaviour is set against criteria for the job. "Recruiting the wrong person is expensive," said James Foster, marketing manager of A&DC.

"Research shows that the total cost of replacing a member of staff averages in excess of £8,000," he added. "Using structured interview formats more than doubles your chance of selecting the right person first time."