Effective Interviewing

When looking at the selection interview as a management tool we focus on the planning, managing, and interpreting roles of the interviewer. There are many techniques that are important. In most instances, however, you are presented with alternatives so you can make your own decisions about what will work for you. You may need to test several techniques out before you can determine which ones work best.

PLANNING:  Tailoring the interview to the job; Identifying the purpose for the selection interview; Selecting key decisions (finding out important characteristics and qualifications of the person); Preparing an agenda; Framing questions for each specific job opening, i.e. work experience, education; Structuring the interview; Reviewing the information; Arranging the setting.

MANAGING:  Introduce yourself and give them an orientation to what is going to take place, build rapport, structure the interview, probe analytically and thoroughly, avoid errors in asking questions, make notations of key information, pace the interview, allow the candidate time to ask questions, conclude the interview.

INTERPRETING THE INTERVIEW DATA: Review the job specification, made in your planning stage and make the kind of judgments that are consistent with it, be aware of potential biases and try to counteract them, differentiate between inferences and observations about the interviewee, use multiple interviewers as an option, interviewers tend to be influenced more by unfavorable than favorable information, judgments about one applicant are often influenced by the characteristics of and judgment about the previous candidates, evaluate the relationship between questions, the data you receive, and the judgments you make, finally a decision must be made to hire or reject a candidate. The very fact that you have alternatives, however, means that you must have a basis for making choices. The reasons behind those decisions are very important because they are the factors that reveal your understanding of the selection process.

Keep in mind that you have a great deal of power as the selector and that your control of the interview can be absolute. Nevertheless, for an interview to be a truly beneficial experience in the long run, it must be a genuine joint interaction. Evaluate your behaviors, not only in terms of what they achieve for you, but also in terms of the kind of impact they have upon the interviewee. Whenever possible, make it a win-win situation.