Anyone recruiting someone for a job has a lot of responsibility because wrong recruitment is not only a disaster both for the candidate and for the company, but it is also a very expensive mistake.
When the recruitment process has advanced to the interview stage, the recruiter, typically from the human resource department, needs to decide what kind of interview would be used. Some of the criteria affecting this choice of interview type is the nature of the job, industry, or field, age of applicant, corporate culture etc.
- Unstructured Interview - The interviewer has a list of points that needs to be covered though the interview flows naturally like a chat. This method is very useful for relaxing the interviewee. The interviewer, however, should go through every point and must carefully note down all the answers and evaluate them systematically.
- Critical Incident Interview - Candidates are given some job-related critical incidents. They are then interviewed about what actions they would take in these particular situations. The interviews are then scored using a scoring system.
- Behavior Description Interviews - Candidates are asked what actions they have taken in prior job situations that are similar to situations they may encounter on the job. The interviewees also may need to give justifications for their actions. The interviews are then scored using a scoring system.
- Structured Behavioral Interview - This technique involves asking interviewees, standardized questions about how they handled past situations that were similar to situations they might encounter on their job. The interviewer may also ask probing questions for details of the situations, the interviewee's behavior in the situation, rational for particular decisions and the outcome. The interviewee's responses can then be scored with behaviorally anchored rating scales.
- Comprehensive Structured Interviews - This technique is wider in scope than the previous technique. In addition to the former, interviewees are asked about job knowledge, worker requirements, and how the candidate would perform various job simulations. This method of interviews is a way to assess a candidate's current level of knowledge about different dimensions of job performance, which are difficult to quantify (i.e., "tacit knowledge," "emotional intelligence," or "practical intelligence" related to a specific job).
- Oral Interview Boards - The main difference here is that instead of one or two interviewers, there is a panel of interviewers firing questions in rapid sequence. Each member of the panel then rates the interviewee on such dimensions as work history, creative thinking, motivation, and presentation. The scoring procedure for oral interview boards is typically subjective. This technique is very time-consuming and expensive and may not be feasible when a large number of applicants must be interviewed.
The main purpose of the recruitment interview is to get information on certain pre-defined issues. In addition the recruitment interview also should give an in-depth impression of the interviewee. Whatever technique the interviewer chooses, the overall impression the interviewer gets should also be noted down and should be considered when making the final decision. A hunch ignored at the interview could have in many cases helped avoid an expensive wrong recruitment.
