What’s the Point of an Interview?
The reason for an interview is to evaluate potential candidates for a position at your company. By conducting an interview, you’ll be able to assess if the person is what you are looking for. The type of interview you conduct should be based off of methods with systematic data so they are reliable, valid, and have good utility.
The Big Three
- Reliability – the consistency and dependability of a performance measure; the degree to which it is free from error; a necessary condition for validity
- Validity – the extent to which a performance measure assesses what it’s supposed to measure (i.e., relates to how accurately it measures something);
- Selection utility – the extent to which a selection procedure is worth the time and money
Personal Experience
I have had a few job interviews, however not a lot that were memorable. The job interviews I have been interviewed for were structured. Most of the questions were pretty standard, relating to behavioral and situational questions. An example for a cafe barista position that I was interviewing for asked me “Tell me about a time when a customer was upset with their order and what did you do about it?”. These kinds of questions are good because this will let the interviewer know how well I performed at a task. In this setting, you would call this kind of interview reliable, as it is structured and standard questions.
Another interview, I suppose you would call it that, was surprisingly done online through DMing each other on the platform Instagram. This was for a local small donut shop hiring for a barista and cashier. The utility of this method was high, as it was easy to text each party, however the questions on their side would be considered unreliable and not valid. As they didn’t really know who I was. The questions consisted of “Have you worked customer service before? Have you made espresso before?” etc. They hired me on the spot with no in person interview, and very little questions about my previous work history and experience. Needless to say I did not work there very long.
By comparing some of the interviews I have had in the past I would recommend these employers to try to schedule a meeting professionally, whether on zoom or in person. Having a variety of questions to understand the person as a whole, such as behavioral questions , open-ended questions and be sure to avoid obvious questions.
