An interview is a selection tool that enables an employer to assess a candidate’s behaviour and observe his entire personality. A face-to-face interview is a way to get to know a potential employee better by learning about his or her intellect, range of interests, and overall outlook on life.
A planned exchange of ideas, the response to questions, and dialogue between two or more people constitute an interview, in Scott’s words.
An interview is an attempt to learn as much as possible about an applicant about his suitability for the position.
Types of Interviews
There are several interview formats that may be used to gather information of different sorts and assess a candidate’s abilities, expertise, etc. on a range of criteria.
1) Preliminary Interview: During the preliminary interview, the applicant and the personnel manager discuss the fundamentals of the position, including its responsibilities, requirements, and compensation and benefits.
This assists a company in getting rid of unfit employees and aids the job applicant in choosing whether to accept or reject the position. The following categories of preliminary interviews exist:
i) Casual / Informal Interview: HR staff members might conduct an informal interview anywhere to get basic and unrelated information.
ii) Unstructured Interview: In an unstructured interview, applicants are given the flexibility to discuss their backgrounds, expectations, interests, and expertise in a variety of subjects and areas. The interviewer is also permitted to provide information on other subjects the applicant has asked about.
2) Core Interview: In a core interview, the applicant and the line manager or other subject-matter specialists discuss many aspects of job knowledge, skills, talent, etc. Core interviews may be categorised as follows:
i) Background Information Interviews: The purpose of these interviews is to elicit information that cannot be learned from an application form. It is also used to check the data that is gathered via the application form, such as the applicant’s educational history, place of residence, family, and health, as well as their interests, pastimes, likes, and dislikes, as well as their involvement in extracurricular activities.
ii) Stress Interview: A stress interview is intended to assess a candidate’s behaviour while they are working and their ability to survive under pressure or stress, or how well they can handle pressure. The purpose of this kind of interview is to demoralise the applicant and assess his capacity for dealing with challenging circumstances. The candidate is subjected to aggressive, callous, or frightening settings.
iii) Formal and Structured Interviews: Formal and structured interviews strictly adhere to all formalities and procedures related to conducting an interview, including setting the value, the time, the panel of interviewers, the opening and closing statements, officially notifying the candidates, etc. Based on the demands of the task, they are organised and prepared in advance.
iv) Panel Interviews: In a panel interview, a group of experts will interview each applicant, assess each one’s performance independently, and then come to a collective conclusion based on the evaluations of all the experts and the weighting of each element.
v) Group Interview: A group interview is a unique scenario in which many applicants are invited for interviews at the same time. For instance, group interviews let the interviewers be able to analyse a big number of applicants when there are many candidates for interview on the same day. The organisation may also use it as a time-saving tool. The chance to assess a candidate’s behaviour in a group setting is also provided via group interviews. a
vi) Job and Probing Interviews: Job and probing interviews are primarily made to assess the candidate’s understanding of the tasks, responsibilities, work processes, important issues, solutions to those difficulties, etc.
vii) Depth Interview: During a depth interview, a candidate is assessed in the crucial areas of knowledge and abilities required for the position. Experts in the relevant professions assess candidates by asking pertinent questions to elicit meaningful answers, kicking off a debate about some challenging aspects of the work, and having them explain even the smallest details of job performance.
3) Decision-Making Interview: The director of the concerti department may also conduct this kind of interview. This style of interview is often performed via casual conversation. In order to make a choice about pay, allowances, perks, promotions, etc., the hiring manager is also required to interview the applicant.
After exchanging opinions, the departmental head and the HR manager jointly inform the head of the interview panel of their choice. Final judgement on the candidate’s performance and corresponding rank in the 0 interview rests with the head interview board.
Steps in Interview Process
1) Interview Preparation: The interview should be carefully prepared before it takes place in order to ensure that the most crucial topics are covered and that the interviewer is aware of any pertinent information that may be needed. The following are the preparations that an organisation must make:
i) The interview format should be chosen in accordance with the demands of the position.
ii) The primary goal of the interview process should be to ascertain the candidate’s comprehension and skill set in relation to the requirements and nature of the position.
iii) It is important to specify the number of interviewers before the interview begins.
iv) The information about the candidates that was gathered through previous screening procedures has to be reviewed. In addition, the accuracy of the procedures utilised must be verified, and the results should be reevaluated.
v) All choices on the methods to be used, the subject matter to be covered, the inquiries to be made, the scheduling to be established, etc., should be made in accordance with organisational planning and well in advance.
vi) The environment where the interview will take place has to be conducive to both the interviewer and the candidate feeling at ease.
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2) Conducting the Interview: This phase is quite challenging, while being the most crucial. Most managers don’t want to undertake this position since they think it’s the most difficult one throughout the interview process. While doing the interview, the interviewer must carry out a number of activities. Here are a few of them:
i) Starting the Interview: The interviewer starts the interview with a lot of passion, an effective voice, and a friendly demeanour in order to make the interviewee feel at ease and confident. He is able to win the candidate’s trust in this way.
ii) Gather Comprehensive and Accurate Information: Using the scheduled interview, the interviewer must gather complete and accurate information about the candidate, including his education, experience, and expertise as well as his behaviour, viewpoint, and talents.
iii) Recording of Observations and Impressions: The interviewer must write down any observations and impressions he had during the interview in order to determine if the applicant meets the requirements of the position or not.
3) Ending the Interview: It goes without saying that ending the interview is just as crucial as beginning it. The interview conclusion should be cordial and must be completed within a certain amount of time without sending the candidates the wrong message.
4) Evaluation of Interview Results: After the interview is over, a team of skilled interviewers conducts the evaluation. The goal of this examination is to identify both the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. The evaluation of interview grades, which primarily influences the selection procedure, is based on the interviewer’s observations and the data gathered during the whole process. The interviewers must ensure that the applicant’s abilities and credentials match the job criteria as they evaluate the interview’s outcomes.
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Advantages of Interview
The following are some benefits of interviews for both job seekers and employers:
1) Employers: The following are some benefits of interviewing for employers:
i) Provides Information About Job-Seeking Seeker: An interview aids a potential employer in learning everything there is to know about the job candidate. A person’s educational and professional history, employment history, IQ, communication skills, personality type, hobbies, and other characteristics may all be learned about during an interview.
ii) Assists in choosing the best candidate: An interview allows the interviewer and applicants to speak face-to-face. As a result, the interviewer may choose correctly whether to choose or reject the applicant. The ideal method for interviewers to employ when choosing the perfect candidate for the position is a personal interview.
iii) Increases Employers’ Goodwill: An interview serves as a public-relations instrument. A good interview must be conducted in a friendly setting. Interview applicants should be treated with respect and decency. Regardless matter whether the applicant is chosen or rejected, an effort should be made to make them feel good about the company. This will improve the company’s reputation. Consequently, a successful interview always increases the employer’s reputation.
iv) Aids in Promotions and Transfers: An employer might examine his workers during an interview to determine whether to make promotions, transfers, etc.
2) Job Seekers: The following are some benefits of interviews for job seekers:
i) Creates an Employment Opportunity: A job applicant benefits from an interview by creating an employment opportunity. It helps a candidate express and communicate to the company his vision, values, and views.
ii) Aids Candidates in Accepting or Rejecting the Job: A candidate benefits from an interview by learning more about the position and the business. The remuneration, benefits and allowances, working conditions, job security, possibilities of promotions and transfers, and other employment advantages, if any, are all known to the applicant.
An interview gives the applicant the chance to address any questions they may have about the position. This aids him in making an informed choice about accepting or rejecting a job offer, should one come his way, that will benefit his career.
iii) Assists Job Seekers in Increasing Contacts: During an interview, a candidate has the chance to network with both the interviewer and other applicants. Therefore, if a candidate’s application for a job is turned down in the first round, these relationships could be able to assist him in subsequent rounds.
Disadvantages of Interview
1) Expensive: The biggest drawback of an interview is that it costs a lot of money and time.
2) Subject to Bias and Personal Traits: Another drawback is that an interview may occasionally be negatively impacted by the interviewer’s questioning style, his interpersonal interactions, inaccurate recordings, and concurrently by the respondent’s incorrect perception, flawed memories, lack of expression, etc.
3) Ineffective in Some Areas: In-person interviews often fail to collect personal and financial data. Mail-in surveys may be used to gather this kind of information, particularly if you are not required to sign them.
4) Recording Difficulties: One drawback of an interview is that it makes it difficult to capture the data that was obtained from the applicants. There is no suitable facility for this use. Because it disrupts the discourse, taking notes during an interview is meant to be a distraction for both the applicant and the interviewer.
5) Requires Skilled Interviewers: An interview calls for a team of highly qualified interviewers, but there aren’t enough of them and it takes a lot of time and money to train and develop them.
6) Subjective: In the event of a personal interview, there is sometimes an opportunity for personal business. This issue might also arise if the investigators are biassed and attempting to leak potential responses from the applicants.
7) Analysis Difficulty: Due to the subjective nature of interview data, analysis may be quite challenging and distorted for both the information and communication.
Barriers to Effective Selection
1) Diversity of Selection Approaches: There isn’t just one ideal method for selecting managers, as seen by the diversity of selection methods and exams.
2) Organizational Environment Change: Over time, the organisational environment is likely to change. The chosen employees have an impact on the organisational environment as well. Everybody has a particular working style, and as a consequence, new management values and styles are introduced as and when they gain authority.
Thus, even if individuals have the power to do something, the methods and tools utilised for selection purposes do not provide a certain way to predict what they will do.
3) Time and Cost Expenses: The time and costs paid when making HR choices are the most crucial factors in the selection and recruiting process. It becomes vital to take into account factors like advertising costs, agency fees, test material costs, time spent in the interview process, expenses for verifying references, medical exams, etc.
4) Perception: A further difficulty in choosing the best candidate is a poor understanding of others. In order to choose the best applicant for the position, selection involves a person or a group to evaluate and compare the various skills of others. Our opinions, however, are quite individualised. Everybody has a unique way of seeing the world. The rational selection of persons is undoubtedly hampered by our limited perceptual capacity.
5) Fairness: For a selection process to be fair, there must be no prejudice or discrimination on the basis of race, gender, region, or religion. The efforts to close the deficit, nevertheless, have not been especially successful.
The lack of women and members of other underrepresented groups in middle and senior management roles, as well as overt age discrimination in job postings and the hiring process, are all clear evidence of prejudice.
6) Validity: The reliability of a test is used to predict a candidate’s performance on the job. The difference between applicants who are capable of doing well and those who are not may be simply determined by a credible exam. Therefore, no validated test can reliably predict whether a job will be successful. The likelihood of success may only rise as a result.
7) Reliability: Only when an interview consistently produces the same findings in several settings at once can it be deemed to be dependable. A trustworthy test may not be able to predict work performance as accurately as a validated exam.
8) Pressure on Selectors: Politicians, bureaucrats, family, friends, and peers have all been known to put pressure on selectors in order to choose candidates. The chosen applicants are obviously not the best match for the position. Due to this pressure, public sector undertaking selection meetings often occur.
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