During week 8 the topic of job interviews and the ways they differ from each other was presented. In learning about the five different styles, I had not realized there were names for anything other than the Panel interview and the One-on-One interview. Of the other three, I felt that the Group interview would be the most harrowing for me since I prefer to compete against myself.
I was familiar with all four mediums; however, I have never used the Written interview via email as it seems a bit removed and “cold” in the ability to translate any human qualities. I would probably use it for clarifications from one of the three other interview types.
The biggest takeaway for me was the differences possible outcomes and biases in the Unstructured and Structured interview. Though I have been on the receiving end of both types, the interviewers using the unstructured approach were not really prepared to conduct the interview. They seemed to be “winging it” with questions and situations that came to mind. Additionally, there would be instances where they would be leading me down a path for an answer they wanted to hear, or they would ask things that were inappropriate or illegal.
Structured interviews seem the fairest to job candidates sing the three criteria they are based on keeps the interviewers on track with asking the same questions of all job candidates. Additionally, sourcing the questions from the job analysis ensures that the questions are specific to the job and helps to avoid “off script” or biased questions. The outcomes of the interviews being evaluated on standardized scoring tool still allows for some subjectivity, but it certainly makes the decision-making processes go faster and fairer. There is a much greater chance that the tool would show validity and reliability.
2 replies on “The Most Important Thing I Learned – Week 10”
Hi Karen!
I really enjoyed reading your post. I really liked your key take away as noticing biases within the interview and recruitment process was something that I had never really thought about before. Now going forward I am excited to analyze my future job on boarding processes for potential bias.
Hi Karen,
I think you have chosen a great topic even though I don’t have much experience with all types of interviews but I have learned about them in different courses especially structured and unstructured interviews. I think I completely agree with your point that most of the time unstructured interviews are conducted by the interviewer who has no idea what to ask the candidate and they are just winging it trying to get useless information from the candidate and ask them illegal or personal questions that are not related to the job specifications or interview. On the other hand when there is a structured interview the interviewer has great knowledge about the job and the skills and abilities needed to perform that job so they ask only relevant questions keeping in mind what they need to hear and what the candidate shows and do they have the skills and abilities needed to perform the job but not only that they also keep in mind that are they fit for the culture of the organization or not as we have learned from the book that it is necessary to keep in mind the culture of the organization while selecting a candidate. That is why the reliability of structured interviews is higher than unstructured interviews