NOTE: This Study Guide is Supposed to Supplement Your Textbook,

and is Not, By Any Means, Replacing It

Chapter 7: Interviewing Candidates

Basic Types of Interviews

What is a selection interview?
A selection interview is selection procedure designed to predict future performance based on
applicants’ oral responses to oral inquiries.
Selection interviews are classified according to:
 How structured they are
 Their content i.e. types of questions they contain
 How the firm administers the interview?

Structured Versus Unstructured Interviews

Unstructured (nondirective) interviews
 The manager follows no set format. Thus, it is an unstructured conversational style
interview in which the interviewer pursues points of interest as they come up in response
to questions.
 There is seldom a formal guide for scoring right or wrong answers
 Typical questions may include:
- Tell me about yourself
- Why do you think you’d do a good job here?
- What would you say are your main strengths and weaknesses?
Structured (directive) interviews
The employer lists job-relevant questions ahead of time and may weight possible alternative
answers for appropriateness. Thus, such interviews follow a set sequence of questions.
Which type of structure to use?
A structured interview is generally superior because:
 All interviewers generally ask all applicants the same questions. Thus, they become more
consistent, reliable and valid.
 It can help even less talented interviewers conduct better interviews.
 Standardizing the interview enhances job-relatedness because questions chosen ten to
provide insights into how the person will actually do the job. Thus, it reduces overall
subjectivity and thus the potential for bias and legal challenge is reduced.

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A structured interview suffers from the following problem
It may not provide enough opportunity to pursue points of interest. Thus, the interviewer should
always leave an opportunity to ask follow-up questions and pursue points of interest as they
develop.

Interview Content (What Type of Questions to Ask)

Many interviewers ask relatively unfocused questions such s, “What do you want to be doing in
five years?”. Questions like those generally do not provide much insight into how the person will
be doing on the job.
Types of questions
 Situational questions: A series of job-related questions that focus on how the candidate
would behave in a given situation – a hypothetical situation. Thus, situational questions
start with phrases like, “Suppose you were faced with the following situation …. what
would do?”
 Behavioral questions: A series of job-related questions that focus on how the candidate
reacted to actual situations in the past. Thus, behavioral questions start with phrases like,
“Can you think of a time when …. what did you do?”.
 Other types of questions:
- Job-related interview: The interviewer asks applicants question about job-relevant
past experience. The aim is to draw conclusions about the candidate’s ability to
handle certain aspects of the job like, for example financial aspects.
- Stress interview: The interviewer seeks to make the applicant uncomfortable with
occasionally rude questions. The aim is supposedly to spot sensitive applicants and
those with low or high stress tolerance. Thus, stress interviews may help unearth
hypersensitive applicants who might overreact to mild criticism with anger and
abuse. Such interviews need skilled interviewers and assurance that the job calls
for a thick skin and an ability to handle stress.
- Puzzle questions: Recruiters see how candidates think under pressure

How the Interview is Conducted?

 One-on-one interview: Two people meet alone, and one interviews the other by seeking
oral responses to oral inquiries.
 Sequential or serial interview: Several persons interview the applicant, in sequence, one-
one-one, and then make their hiring decision.
 Unstructured sequential interview: Each interviewer generally just asks questions as they
come in mind
 Structured sequential interview: Each interviewer rates the candidates on a standard
evaluation form using standardized questions.

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  Panel interview (board interview): An interview conducted by a team of interviewers (2 or
3) who together question each candidate and then combine their ratings of each candidate’s
answers into a final panel score. Thus, the panel enables interviewers to:
- Ask follow-up questions
- Elicit (produce) more meaningful responses than a series of one-on-one interview
On the other hand, some candidates find panel interviews more stressful sot they may
inhibit responses.
 Mass interview: The panel interviews several candidates and then watch to see which
candidate takes the lead in formulating an answer.
 Phone interview: Employers occasionally conduct interviews via the phone. Such
interviews:
- Can be more useful than face-to-face interviews for judging one conscientiousness,
intelligence and interpersonal skills.
- Because they do not need any worry about the appearance or handshake, each party
can focus on the answers.
- Candidates surprised by an unplanned call from the recruiter may give more
spontaneous answers.
 Bain and Company Case Interview: Bain and Company uses case interviews as part of its
candidate selection process. By having candidates explain how they would address the
case – client – problem. Thus, the case interview combines elements of behavioral and
situational questioning to provide a more realistic assessment of the candidate’s consulting
skills.

Three Way to Make the Interview More Useful?

Interview is generally a good predictor of performance and is comparable with many other
selection techniques. Thus, it is advisable to:
 Use Structured situational interviews: Structured situational interviews are more valid and
reliable that unstructured interview in predicting job performance. They yield higher mean
validity than do job-related or behavior interviews, which in turn yield higher men validity
than do psychological interviews which focus more on motives and interests.
 Know what to ask: The interviewer should focus more on situational and job knowledge
questions that help to assess how the candidate will respond to typical situations on the job.
 Beware of committing interview errors: Effective interviewers understand and avoid
various errors that can undermine any interview’s usefulness.

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Errors That Can Undermine an Interview’s Usefulness

First Impression (Snap Judgment)

Probably the most widespread error is that interviewers tend to jump into conclusions – snap
judgment – about candidates during the first few minutes of the interview or even before the
interview begins - based on test scores or resume data.
First impressions are especially damaging when the prior information about the candidate is
negative. The interviewer’s final decision – accept or reject the applicant – may be impacted by
what they expected of the applicant based on the references, for example, rather than the
applicant’s actual interview performance.
It is important to note the following:
 Interviewers are more influenced by unfavorable than favorable information about the
candidate
 Interviewers impressions are much more likely to change from favorable to unfavorable
rather than from unfavorable to favorable i.e. may interviewers really search more for
negative information, often without realizing it.

Not Clarifying What the Job Requires

Interviewers who do not have accurate picture of what the job entails and what sort of candidate
is best for it usually make their decisions based on incorrect impressions or stereotypes of what
good applicant is.

Candidate-Order (Contrast) Error and Pressure to Hire

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. Pressure to hire accentuates this
problem.

Nonverbal Behavior and Impression Management

The applicant’s nonverbal behavior has a surprisingly large impact on the interviewer’s rating.
Nonverbal behavior is important because the interviewer infers the applicant’s personality from
the way he or she acts in the interview. The interviewee’s personality, particularly, his or her
extraversion, had a pronounced influence on whether or not he or she received follow-up
interviews and job offer. In turn extraverted applicants seen particularly prone to self-promotion
(promoting one’s skills and abilities to create the impression of competence) which is particularly
related to the interviewer’s perception of person-job fit. It is important to note that even structuring
the interview does not cancel out the effects of such nonverbal behavior.
Impression management where clever candidates capitalize on this fact. For instance, the
candidates praised the interviewer or appeared to agree with their opinions, thus signaling they
shared similar beliefs.

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Effect of Personal Characteristics: Attractiveness, Gender, Race
Unfortunately, physical attributes distort assessment like, for example, ascribing favorable traits
and more successful life outcomes to attractive people. Similarly, race can play a role depending
on how the interview is conducted.
Interviewers reaction to minority stereotypes are complex. In general, candidates evidencing
attributes and disabilities like, for example being wheelchair-bound, have less chance of obtaining
a positive decision, even when the person performed well in the structured interview.

Interviewer behavior
Some interviewers:
 Inadvertently telegraph the expected answers like for example saying “This job involves a
lot of stress. You can handle that, can’t you?”. Even subtle cues – like for example, smile
or nod – can telegraph the desired answer.
 Talk so much that applicants have no time to answer questions.
 Let the applicant dominate the interview.
 Play interrogator
 Ask improper questions forgetting that discriminatory questions had a significant negative
effect on the participant’s reactions to the interview and interviewer.

How to Design and Conduct an Effective Interview

There is little doubt that a structured situational interview – a series of job-relevant questions with
predetermined answers that interviewers ask of all applicants for the job – produces superior
results. Ideally, the basic idea to:
1. Write situational questions (what would you do), behavioral questions (What did you do),
or job knowledge questions.
2. Have a job expert, like supervisors, write several answers for each of these questions, rating
the answers from good to poor. The people who interview the applicants then use rating
sheets anchored with these examples of good or bad answers to rate the interviewees’
answers.

Designing a Structured Situational Interview

1. Analyze the job: Write job description with a list of job duties, required knowledge, skills
and abilities, and other worker qualifications.
2. Rate the job’s main duties: Rate each job duty, say from 1 to 5, based on how important it
is to do the job.
3. Create interview questions: Create interview questions for each of the job duties, with
more questions for important duties. Questions could be:

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 - Situational questions pose a hypothetical job situation.
- Job knowledge questions assess knowledge essential to job performance.
- Willingness questions gauge the applicant’s willingness and motivation to meet the
job’s requirements.
4. Create benchmark answers: For each question, develop ideal (benchmark) answers for
good (a 5 rating, marginal (3 rating) and poor (1 rating) answers and a rating sheet.
5. Appoint the interview panel and conduct interviews: Employer generally conduct
structured situational interviews using panel, rather than one-on-one. The panel usually
consists of three to six members, preferable the same ones who wrote the questions and
answers. In may include the job’s supervisor, and a human resources representative. The
same panel interviews all candidates.
The panel:
- Members review jo description, question and benchmark questions before the
interview
- One member introduces the applicant and asks all questions of all applicants in this
and succeeding candidates’ interviews to ensure consistency.
- All panel members record and rate the applicant’s answers on the rating sheet. They
do this indicating where the candidate’s answers fall relative to the benchmark poor,
marginal and good answers.
- At the end of the interview, someone answers any questions the applicant has.

How to Conduct an Effective Interview

1. Make sure you know the job: This need studying the job description
2. Structure the interview: Any structuring is better than none. If pressed for time, you can
still do several things to ask more consistent and job-related questions, with developing a
full-blown structured interview. They include:
- Base questions on actual job duties.
- Use job knowledge situational, or behavioral questions, and know enough about the
job to be able to evaluate the interviewee’s answers.
- Use the same questions with all candidates to improve reliability
- If possible, use interview form.
3. Get organized: How the interview in a private room to minimize interruptions. In addition,
make sure to review the candidate’s application and resume taking a note of vague areas
or that may indicate areas of strengths and weaknesses.
4. Establish rapport: The main reason for the interview is to find out about the applicant. Start
by putting the person at ease by greeting the interviewee and starting the interview by
asking a noncontroversial question – weather of the day, for example.

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 5. Ask question: Try to follow the situational, behavioral and job knowledge questions you
wrote head of time. As a rule:
- Do not Telegraph the desired answer
- Do not Interrogate the applicant
- Do not Monopolize the interview or allow the applicant to dominate the interview
- Ask open-ended questions
- Encourage the applicant to express thoughts fully
- Draw out the applicant’s opinion and feelings by repeating the person’s last
comments as a question, for example, “you did not like your previous job?”
- Ask for examples
- Ask, “if I were to arrange for an interview with your boss, what would he or she
say are your strengths, weaknesses and overall performance?”
6. Take brief, unobtrusive notes during the interview: Doing so:
- It helps avoid making a snap decision early in the interview
- It helps jog your memory once the interview is complete
- Take notes, jotting down just the key point of what the interview says
7. Close the interview: Leave time to answer any questions the candidates may have and if
appropriate to advocate your company to the candidate. In all cases, end the interview on
a positive note.
8. Review the interview: After the candidate leaves, review you interview notes, score the
answers and make a decision.

Talent Management: Profiles and Employee Interviews

To ensure an integrated, goal oriented human resource effort, talent management adheres to the
same “competency model” or job profile – listing required skills, knowledge, behaviors and other
competencies – for creating interview questions as for recruiting, testing, training, appraising and
paying employees.
The manager can use the job’s profile to formulate job-related situational, behavioral, and
knowledge interview questions when selecting someone for a job or set of rules.

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The following example provides an example for a chemical engineer candidate:

Asking Profile-Oriented Interview Questions

(Table 7-1)
Profile
Example Sample interview question
component
Able to use computer Tell me about a time you used CAD Pro
Skill
drafting software computerized design software
How extreme heat affects Suppose you an application where HCL is
hydrochloric acid (HCL) heated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit at 2
Knowledge
atmospheres of pressure, what happens to
HCL?
Willing to travel abroad Suppose you had a family meeting that you had
at least 4 months per year to attend next week, and our company informed
Trait visiting facilities you that you had to leave for a job abroad
immediately and stay 3 weeks. How would
you handle that?
Developing pollution Tell about a time when you designed a
filter for acid-cleaning pollution filter device for an acid-cleaning
Experience facility facility. How did it work? What particular
problems did you encounter? How did you
address them?

Developing and Extending the Job Offer

How to decide to whom to make a job offer?
 The judgmental approach subjectively weighs all the evidence about the candidate
 The statistical approach quantifies all evidence and perhaps uses a formula to predict job
success
 The hybrid approach combines statistical results with judgment

Extending a job
The employer extends an actual job offer to the candidate verbally where the employer’s point
person (person to whom new employee will report to or human resource director ... etc.) discusses
the offer’s main parameters which includes pay rates, benefits, and actual job duties. There may
be some negotiations and once agreement is reached, the employer will extend written offer to the
candidate.