A job interview is an interview consisting of a conversation between a job applicant and a representative of an employer which is conducted to assess whether the applicant should be hired. Interviews are one of the most common methods of employee selection. Interviews vary in the extent to which the questions are structured, from an unstructured and informal conversation to a structured interview in which an applicant is asked a predetermined list of questions in a specified order; structured interviews are usually more accurate predictors of which applicants will make suitable employees, according to research studies.
A job interview typically precedes the hiring decision. The interview is usually preceded by the evaluation of submitted résumés from interested candidates, possibly by examining job applications or reading many resumes. Next, after this screening, a small number of candidates for interviews is selected.
Potential job interview opportunities also include networking events and career fairs. The job interview is considered one of the most useful tools for evaluating potential employees. It also demands significant resources from the employer, yet has been demonstrated to be notoriously unreliable in identifying the optimal person for the job. An interview also allows the candidate to assess the corporate culture and the job requirements.
Multiple rounds of job interviews and/or other candidate selection methods may be used where there are many candidates or the job is particularly challenging or desirable. Earlier rounds, sometimes called 'screening interviews', may involve fewer staff from the employers and will typically be much shorter and less in-depth. An increasingly common initial interview approach is the telephone interview. This is especially common when the candidates do not live near the employer and has the advantage of keeping costs low for both sides. Since 2003, interviews have been held through video conferencing software, such as Skype. Once all candidates have been interviewed, the employer typically selects the most desirable candidate(s) and begins the negotiation of a job offer.
Strategies
Researchers have attempted to identify interview strategies or "constructs" that can help interviewers choose the best candidate. Research suggests that interviews capture a wide variety of applicant attributes. Constructs can be classified into three categories: job-relevant content, interviewer performance (behavior unrelated to the job but which influences the evaluation), and job-irrelevant interviewer biases.Note: personal and demographic characteristics of applicants that may influence interviewer evaluations of interviewee responses in an illegal, discriminatory way
Job-relevant interview content Interview questions are generally designed to tap applicant attributes that are specifically relevant to the job for which the person is applying. The job-relevant applicant attributes that the questions purportedly assess are thought to be necessary for successful performance on the job. The job-relevant constructs that have been assessed in the interview can be classified into three categories: general traits, experiential factors, and core job elements. The first category refers to relatively stable applicant traits. The second category refers to job knowledge that the applicant has acquired over time. The third category refers to the knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with the job.
General traits Mental ability: Applicants' capacity to listen, to communicate, to work with a team, to have attention to detail, and to learn and process information, Personality: Conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, extroversion, openness to new experiences Interest, goals, and values: Applicant motives, goals, and person-organization fit
Experiential factors Experience: Job-relevant knowledge derived from prior experience Education: Job-relevant knowledge derived from prior education Training: Job-relevant knowledge derived from prior training
Core job elements Declarative knowledge: Applicants' learned knowledge Procedural skills and abilities: Applicants' ability to complete the tasks required to do the job Motivation: Applicants' willingness to exert the effort required to do the jobCampbell, J. P., McCloy, R. A., Oppler, S. H., & Sager, C. E. (1993). A theory of performance. In N. Schmitt & W. C. Borman (Eds.), Personnel selection in organizations (pp. 35–70). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Interviewee performance Interviewer evaluations of applicant responses also tend to be influenced by how an applicant behaves in the interview. These behaviors may not be directly related to the constructs the interview questions were designed to assess, but can be related to aspects of the job for which they are applying. Applicants may subconsciously engage in a number of behaviors that influence ratings of their performance. The applicant may have acquired these behaviors during training or from previous interview experience. These interviewee performance constructs can also be classified into three categories: social effectiveness skills, interpersonal presentation, and personal/contextual factors.
Social effectiveness skills Impression management: Applicants' attempt to make sure the interviewer forms a positive impression of them Social skills: Applicants' ability to adapt their behavior according to the demands of the situation to positively influence the interviewer Self-monitoring: Applicants' regulation of behaviors to control the image presented to the interviewer Relational control: Applicants' attempt to control the flow of the conversation
Interpersonal presentation Verbal expression: Pitch, rate, pauses, tone Nonverbal behavior: Gaze, smile, hand movement, body orientation
Personal/contextual factors Interview training: Coaching, mock interviews with feedback Interview experience: Number of prior interviews Interview self-efficacy: Applicants' perceived ability to do well in the interview Interview motivation: Applicants' motivation to succeed in an interview
Job-irrelevant interviewer biases The following are personal and demographic characteristics that can potentially influence interviewer evaluations of interviewee responses. These factors are typically not relevant to whether the individual can do the job (that is, not related to job performance), thus, their influence on interview ratings should be minimized or excluded. In fact, there are laws in many countries that prohibit consideration of many of these protected classes of people when making selection decisions. Using structured interviews with multiple interviewers coupled with training may help reduce the effect of the following characteristics on interview ratings. The list of job-irrelevant interviewer biases is presented below. Attractiveness: Applicant physical attractiveness can influence the interviewer's evaluation of one's interview performance Race: Whites tend to score higher than Blacks and Hispanics; racial similarity between interviewer and applicant, on the other hand, has not been found to influence interview ratings Gender: Females tend to receive slightly higher interview scores than their male counterparts; gender similarity does not seem to influence interview ratings Similarities in background and attitudes: Interviewers perceived interpersonal attraction was found to influence interview ratings Culture: Applicants with an ethnic name and a foreign accent were viewed less favorably than applicants with just an ethnic name and no accent or an applicant with a traditional name with or without an accent
The extent to which ratings of interviewee performance reflect certain constructs varies widely depending on the level of structure of the interview, the kind of questions asked, interviewer or applicant biases, applicant professional dress or nonverbal behavior, and a host of other factors. For example, some research suggests that an applicant's cognitive ability, education, training, and work experiences may be better captured in unstructured interviews, whereas an applicant's job knowledge, organizational fit, interpersonal skills, and applied knowledge may be better captured in a structured interview.
Further, interviews are typically designed to assess a number of constructs. Given the social nature of the interview, applicant responses to interview questions and interviewer evaluations of those responses are sometimes influenced by constructs beyond those the questions were intended to assess, making it extremely difficult to tease out the specific constructs measured during the interview. Reducing the number of constructs the interview is intended to assess may help mitigate this issue. Moreover, of practical importance is whether the interview is a better measure of some constructs in comparison to paper and pencil tests of the same constructs. Indeed, certain constructs (mental ability and skills, experience) may be better measured with paper and pencil tests than during the interview, whereas personality-related constructs seem to be better measured during the interview in comparison to paper and pencil tests of the same personality constructs. In sum, the following is recommended: Interviews should be developed to assess the job-relevant constructs identified in the job analysis.
Assessment
Person-environment fit Person-environment fit is often measured by organizations when hiring new employees. There are many types of Person-environment fit with the two most relevant for interviews being Person-job and Person-organization fit. Interviewers usually emphasize Person-job fit and ask twice as many questions about Person-job fit compared to Person-organization fit. Interviewers are more likely to give applicants with a good Person-job fit a hiring recommendation compared to an applicant with a good Person-organization fit.
An applicant's knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes (KSAOs) are the most commonly measured variables when interviewers assess Person-job fit. In one survey, all interviewers reported that their organization measures KSAOs to determine Person-job fit. The same study found that all interviewers used personality traits and 65% of the interviewers used personal values to measure Person-organization fit.
Despite fit being a concern among organizations, how to determine fit and the types of questions to use varies. When interview fit questions were examined, only 4% of the questions used in interviews were similar across the majority of organizations. 22% of questions were commonly used by recruiters in some organizations. In contrast, 74% of the questions had no commonality between organizations. Although the idea of fit is similar in many organizations, the questions used and how that information is judged may be very different.
Person-job fit and Person-organization fit have different levels of importance at different stages of a multi-stage interview process. Despite this, Person-job fit is considered of the highest importance throughout the entire process. Organizations focus more on job-related skills early on to screen out potentially unqualified candidates. Thus, more questions are devoted to Person-job fit during the initial interview stages. Once applicants have passed the initial stages, more questions are used for Person-organization fit in the final interview stages. Although there is more focus on Person-organization fit in these later stages, Person-job fit is still considered to be of greater importance.
In a single-stage interview, both fits are assessed during a single interview. Interviewers still put more weight on Person-job fit questions over the Person-organization questions in these situations as well. Again, Person-job fit questions are used to screen out and reduce the number of applicants.