Interview Experience

My experience with interview is not very broad as I have only had four. The first was for Oregon State UHDS and was close to six years ago so I don’t remember much. The third interview was for a carpenter position in Corvallis and was over the phone. The first and most recent interviews were for a position in construction management and about the same as the carpenter position with more emphasis on my college degree. The UHDS interview was a bit formal but all the construction interviews were informal and based off of my resume while the interviewer wrote notes on a pad or on the resume.

I’ve had mostly informal interviews but I realized at the end of they interview almost all of the questions were the same or about the same. This is why I don’t think formal strict interviews are the only way interviews should be done like Iris Bohnet from the Harvard Business Review thinks. I think for some jobs a strict set of questions and process is okay but for other positions like management there needs to be a human factor interviewed because of the personal side of the job. Every management interview consisted of some small talk and back and forth that could never be scripted from a list of questions. Every interviewer has a set of question they will ask anyway so going down the list for interview seems unnecessary. I feel like the interviewers I have had are consistent in their interviews and questions that they would be able to get all they information they would want consistently.

What I do like from Iris Bohents article is the job related problem solving for interviews. It shows the interviewee has the required skills for the tasks required because resumes don’t mean equal skills given the same degree or years of experience. I believe more tests like this are needed for jobs to determine the best candidate and it helps determine right away the strengths and weaknesses of the interviewee.

I’m not sure what I would improve in an interview since I have gotten all the jobs I have ever interviewed for. I think all my interviewers did a great job and asked probing questions to know more about me and whether I would be a good fit. I could see how there could be a bad interview but I haven’t had one and maybe those who haven’t gotten a certain job may be biased towards the experience.