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Effective vs. Ineffective Interviews

The first interview that I ever had was at age 16 for my local Papa Murphy’s. I remember arriving a few minutes early and waiting in the lobby for a while. Eventually, the assistant manager came out and sat next to me on the bench and started asking all the generic interview questions in an informal manner. I was hired immediately and started that weekend. The training was minimal, as the job was straightforward. In general, the store was not the most organized- the managers were college students, and the employees were mostly high school students. I worked there for about a year, and in that year the turnover rate was high, with many new employees being hired and leaving a few months later.

After leaving this job, I applied to work at Aerie. That interview was much more structured, and they made more of an effort to get to know me with their questions. After being hired, myself and a few other girls that had just been hired all went to a training session. The managers took the time to explain the goals of the company as a whole, and make sure we knew what we were doing prior to our first official shift. The management took things seriously and was far more structured than Papa Murphy’s. There were additional seasonal hires, but overall the turnover rate was significantly lower.

Comparing these two interviews, the questions and interview style at Aerie better vetted candidates for the job versus just hiring to hire. They spent more time interviewing me, and gave a clearer job description whereas Papa Murphy’s barely touched on the actual job description itself. Both interview processes involved reliability, however Aerie was more effective due to the structural nature and lower turnover. Giving clear job descriptions as well as providing training for new hires made the company seem much more put together from an interviewee perspective.

Sources:

Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt W Coffman. First, Break All the Rules : What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/osu/detail.action?docID=1584214.