Having been a part of several interviews in the past, each different in their own way, I found it interesting to get to know about some of the science behind the interview process and how to make them as effective as possible in selecting for talent. As I went through the learning materials for this week, I was interested to read about how structured interviews have been proven to be far more reliable, valid, and effective as a means of comparing candidates. I was particularly interested by this because the majority of interviews that I have been a part of have been unstructured with only one that I have been in being structured. The past two summers, I have been fortunate enough to secure two professional internships, each with a different company. Therefore, during my second and third year as a college student, I participated in several interviews with a variety of different companies. As mentioned earlier, only one of them happened to be a structured interview that had a set line of open-ended questions for me to answer. Meanwhile, all of the other interviews that I have been in resembled simple conversations regarding my own experiences, and how the company operated.
As far as effectiveness goes, I believe that structured interviews are far more valuable as a means of comparing candidates in a non-biased way. By keeping questions consistent and utilizing note sheets and ideal answers to each question with a set way of scoring responses, I believe that this makes the interview process throughout a company much more efficient and consistent despite who the interviewer may be.
Tyler McCleskey