Definition (1):
Candidate-order (or contrast) error means an error of judgment on the part of the interviewer due to interviewing one or more very good or very bad candidates just before the interview in question.
Definition (2):
Candidate-order (or contrast) error refers to an error where the order in which you see applicants affects the way you rate them.
It is in one study, managers had to evaluate a candidate who was “just average” after first evaluating several “unfavorable” candidates. They scored the average candidate more favorably than they might otherwise have done because, in contrast to the unfavorable candidates, the average one looked better than he actually was.
This contrast effect can be huge: in some early studies, evaluators based only a small part of the applicant’s rating on his or her actual potential.
Use of the term in Sentences:
- The candidate was not that much suitable but was selected because of candidate-order (or contrast) error.
- The process of interviewing is affected because of many factors and among them the most common one is candidate-order (or contrast) error and the other is the pressure to hire.