The Art of Interviewing II (contd....)

Link to the Last Post : The Art of Interviewing I

My last post on The Art of Interviewing I hope has brought you on the same platform with me. Before moving ahead I would like you to watch this short video and identify as to how many times have you been into such kind of situation? I bet many of us can recognize with this very well.

Have you ever asked or even given it a thought that why do the interviewers/recruiters ask for our resume from us in a personal round of interview when we already have forwarded a softcopy on the basis of which we have been shortlisted for the personal round?

There can be three reasons according to me

1.       First, they have not gone through the resume earlier and the resume has been shortlisted by the recruiter. This also means that the Interviewer is looking at your resume for the first time.

2.       Or maybe they want to save paper on their front.

3.       Or even maybe they want to ensure that the softcopy that you send earlier is a genuine one or a matching one.

Ridiculous thoughts! Isn’t it? Then you are open to clarify this as I in spite of of being into HR have failed to understand this. It’s however good that a candidate carries a spare copy.

Over and above, I would like my readers to go through this blog of this gentleman to understand a general viewpoint of an Interviewer The Art of Interviewing.

This is how an interviewer thinks and judges your skills. Many of us can recognize with him when we take an interview. He has rightly said that we listen to your gut feeling, it’s almost always right. Do you know why does it always seem to be right, because it is the only tool that will help you judge a candidate when

• ·         You have been asked to take the interview by your manager or the HR just a few minutes before the interview.
• ·         OR you are not aware of the job description of the position.
• ·         OR maybe you would not even be an expert in the skills for which the hiring is being done.
• ·         OR this is the first candidate you have met and you don’t have some other candidate to compare with.
• ·         OR the candidate is proving to be a person who can take your place very easily.
• ·         OR the candidate is reference of one of your colleague or friend.
• ·         OR you are pissed off with your Manager or the HR and want to teach them a lesson.
• ·         OR the candidate is asking much more salary than what you have been getting at the same or higher position.
• ·         OR we don’t know or understand the different attributes written on the feedback form and even how to rate them on a numerical scale.
• ·         OR maybe you have been outclassed by his/her communication skill or personality.

I think this is enough and you all are wise enough to get the message from this. Maybe this gut feeling factor is the one that leaves many candidates guessing as to why were they not selected? 

Companies are crying at the top of their voice about their soaring recruitment costs and are trying their best to curb the attrition. Is attrition the only factor of recruitment cost going high? Or maybe the wrong recruitment and selection is of the cause of high attrition? Very confusing indeed. So what did we do when we had such a situation in any of our silly games during our childhood? We used to start everything afresh from the start in the most correct sequence taking care of each and every detail and bingo all the confusion was gone. 

So I will come again to the Art of Interviewing again and discuss the most critical observation that we have made till now i.e. the unpreparedness of the Interviewer. Supporting facts are the most obvious questions like

• Tell me something about yourself.
• Where do see yourself 5 yrs down the line?
• Tell me your three strengths and weaknesses?
• Why are you looking out for change?

ETC. that are repeatedly asked interviews after interviews. Why? Because they have always faced the same questions as an interviewee.

I think everybody will agree here that in an Interview, both the parties should be equally prepared and the preparedness should not depend on the fact that for an interviewee there are many like them waiting for their turn to prove their worth and for an employer the vice verse. But this is a scene at a single venue of interview and if we zoom out the scene and see the larger picture where the interviewee also has may be  an equal number of opportunities to choose from.

So what comes out of the above paragraph? The fact that both the parties of an interview are sitting there to gain something from the process and that can be achieved well when both perform to their best.

I am just bringing to you the hard fact that 99% of the interviewers in whose hands our future lays are not trained and worse not even prepared for this. And the irony is that who is to be blamed for this because the guilty are themselves the victims when they sit on the other side of the table. So this is not be blamed but to be realized and realized hard and hitting by the organizations who have a very short vision and concentrate and waste their time and resource on the effect and can’t see the cause.

Now I will give you an insight of the science of Interviewing as in terms of Research Methodology.

The interview method of research is a conversation with a purpose and is non-experimental in design. The interviewer in one-to-one conversation collects detailed personal information from individuals using oral questions. The interview is used widely to supplement and extend our knowledge about individual(s) thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Or how they think they feel and behave. Interviews can give us both quantitative and qualitative data about participants' thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This is due to the standardisation and/or free ranging nature of questions asked. The more structured or standardised interview questions are, the more able you are to get quantitative data. Quantitative data is reliable and easy to analyse. The less structured and freer ranging the interview questions the more qualitative your data becomes. Qualitative data is difficult to analyse and is not as reliable. There are two categories of interview, the structured interview and unstructured interview. The key feature of the structured interview is in the pre-planning of all the questions asked. Structured interviews also allow for replication of the interview with others. You can then generalise what you find out to the population from which your interview sample came. Structured interviews are conducted in various modes: face-to-face, by telephone, videophone and the Internet. There are three types of structured interview. The structured interview itself, the semi-structured interview and the clinical interview. A major feature, and difference, is the degree to which each use standardised and unplanned questions. Standardisation helps the reliability of your results and conclusions. The more use of unplanned questions, the less structured the interview becomes. Unplanned spontaneous questions are a key feature of the unstructured interview. Spontaneous questioning is more responsive to the participant. However spontaneous questioning does not allow for generalisation. Spontaneous questions can also be accused of generating invalid results and conclusions. The free ranging nature of questions is both the main advantage and disadvantage of the interview method of research, in general and in particular. 

Compare the types of interview, at a glance
Type of Interview	Advantages	Disadvantages
Structured Interview	Standardisation of all questions can give quantifiable data. Replication. Data is more reliable as the issue is being investigated in a consistent way. Allows generalisation of results/conclusions to the population from which the sample was drawn.	Restrictive questioning leads to restrictive answers. Insensitive to participants' need to express themselves. Validity of questions asked. Are they the right ones?
Semi-structured Interview	Standardisation of most questions gives quantifiable data. Replication. Data is therefore reasonably reliable. Ability to ask some spontaneous questions is sensitive to participants need to express themselves.	Its use of an occasional spontaneous question makes these answers difficult to quantify and analyse. Spontaneous questions asked of some and not of others can be seen as unfair, especially in personnel selection.
Clinical Interview	Flexible, responsive and sensitive to participants. Preparation of core questions should ensure validity. Core questions and responses should be reliable and analysed easily.	Difficult to replicate. As a result an inability to generalise your findings to a wider population. Possible interviewer bias in their use of leading spontaneous questions.
Unstructured Interview	Flexible, responsive and sensitive to participants. Relaxed and natural for those taking part. Highly detailed and ecologically valid qualitative data.	Difficult to replicate. As a result, an inability to generalise your findings to a wider population. Possible interviewer bias in 'selective' use of leading, and spontaneous questions.

Now the Methods of Interviews those are prevalent:-

1. Screening method

Screening method are generally implemented when an employer has a large applicants in which they want to narrow down to a more manageable Number.

2. Behavioral interview

In this one, candidates are asked to show their experience, skills and activities etc - as examples of your past behavior.

3. Stress method

The stress method is created to find applicants who can handle stress situations, and handle it well. For some jobs, jobholders has to work under high pressure so that employers need to check this ability of candidate.

4. Situational interview

A situational method utilizes hypothetical situations/events in the form of a question. Candidates are asked how they would react if they encountered that event. In situational interviewing, job-seekers are asked to respond to a specific situation they may face on the job, and some aspects of it are similar to behavioral interviews.

5. Phone interview

Phone is a method which is conducted by telephone. Most screening interviews are done by phone interview. A phone interview is also used when candidates reside in other countries.

6. Face to face

Face to Face interview (one to one interview) is most common interview method and just involves interviewer and interviewee alone in a private office. This is also known traditional interview in which job seekers meet the employers in face to face

7. Group

All the candidates/job seekers will be in the same room during the interview with one or some interview.

8. Panel

A panel is a technique that allows several member of a hiring company to interview a interviewee at the same time. A panel include a committee interview and one interviewee.

9. Unstructured technique

Unstructured interview are a method of interviews where questions can be changed to meet the respondent's intelligence, understanding.

10. Structured technique

The interviewer has a standard set / sequence of questions that are asked of all candidates. Interviewers read the questions exactly as they appear on the survey questionnaire.


More to come..........