Poorly constructed  interviewing techniques can tell you a lot about an organization. If you have ever experienced a very well orchestrated interview, then you will know the difference immediately when you attend a interview that is less than adequately planned. These types of interviews that are less “together” can enable a job candidate to evaluate the employer on a much larger scale at times, and may be an important foresight of what might be to come for an interviewee.

Several key items to watch for are listed below:

Poor Interview Questions:

1. Yes / No questions: These should be avoided unless specific information is being verified.
2. Obvious questions: The applicant knows if the interviewer already has the answer to a question.
3. Questions that rarely produce a true answer: No one wants to be asked questions that have negative implications if they answer incorrectly. They will say what will get them hired.
4. Leading questions: This is when the answer is obvious due to how the interviewer asked the question.
5. Illegal questions: Anything that has to do with race, age, gender, national origin, marital status, and number of children are illegal. You can’t be asked about these on an application; they can’t ask you about them in an interview.
6. Non-job-related questions: Interview questions should be entirely based on the job.

For a list of questions that cannot be asked during an interview, see the below link:

Business Week Article: Stupid Interview Questions

Other Mistakes Interviewers Make:

1. Snap judgements: When an interviewer decides whether or not they like a person based on an initial reaction to them.
2. Negative emphasis: When unfavorable information is weighed more heavily than favorable information for an applicant.
3. Halo effect: When a positive characteristic is allowed to overshadow other possibly negative characteristics in an applicant.
4. Horn effect: When a negative characteristic is allowed to overshadow other possibly positive characteristics in an applicant.
5. Biases and stereotyping: When the interviewer has some similar characteristic(s) to the job candidate, then they may have a “like me bias” or a “similarity bias”.
6. Cultural noise: The tendency of applicants to give answers based on what they feel the interviewer wants to hear, causing interviewers to come to incorrect conclusions.

Each of these areas are likely common to many interviewers, especially in smaller companies without a well-educated and dedicated HR department.

Have you had any experiences with interview problems that are interesting or unique?

Interviewer Reliability

Much of a job candidate’s success in an interview is determined by the interviewer. When the personal bias of an interviewer enters into the decision making process, there may be low intra-rater reliability. If there are several interviewers that are biased due to their personal (not work-related / unprofessional) opinions of a job applicant, there may be low inter-rater reliability.

Both types of reliability come into play whenever a interviewer’s or group of interviewer’s personal opinions begin to hold weight in the decision of who is going to be hired.

Detailed explanations of interviewer reliability bias’ as well as other reliability topics related to interviewing job applicants can be found at the following web link:

SocialReseachMethods.net: Types of Reliability

Validity

Validity is when a test measures what it claims to measure. There are several types of validity, but the concept of validity within an employment interview has to do with how fairly a job candidate is being assessed in comparison to other job candidates, current employees, and possibly other interviewers experiences with other job candidates as well. The idea is that the interviewing process needs to be as standardized as possible including any tests or interaction with the candidates for the job position in order to attain the highest amount of validity possible. There are several areas of validity to be aware of:

1. Content Validity: This requires that a test measure the full scope of data that it is intended to measure. Tests that do not cover a range of data broad enough to produce an accurate understanding of a job applicant’s qualifications for a position lack content validity.
2. Criterion-related Validity: This requires that a test demonstrates effectiveness in predicting whether a candidate will be good at a position and reinforces their abilities. There are two types of criterion-related validity: Concurrent Validity and Predictive Validity. Concurrent Validity would require a test to measure criterion that are present when the test is being administrated. An example of this would be a test that measured the amount of anxiety experienced by the test taker. Predictive Validity would measure criterion that would likely be present in the future for the test taker, such as an aptitude test.
3. Construct Validity: This is when a test demonstrates an association between test scores and a theoretical trait such as loyalty or propensity towards violence.

A job candidate can take an inventory of the apparent fairness and reliability of the interviewer as well as validity of any employment-related questions or testing that is completed in order to establish what type of organization they may be entering into. It is often the first real interaction that a applicant will have with an organization and the organization’s employment practices can be an excellent indicator of what the larger organization will be like if they are eventually hired.

What are your thoughts, comments, experiences regarding the reliability of interviewers that you have encountered or the validity of employment tests that you have taken?

There are several types of employment interviews. Each type posses different challenges to the interviewee. A full description of different types of interviews can be found at About.com using the below link:

Click here to view About.com: Interview Types Analysis

The main types of employment interviews are as follows:

1. Biographical: Focuses on a chronological assessment of the candidate’s past experiences. This type of interview is widely used and is often combined with other collected information.
2. Behavioral: Interview in which applicants give specific examples of how they have performed a certain task or handled a problem in the past.
3. Competency: The competency interview is similar to the behavioral interview except that the questions are designed to provide the interviewer with something to measure the applicant’s response against. A competency profile for the position is often utilized, which includes a list of competencies necessary to do that particular job.
4. Situational: A structured interview that contains questions about how applicants might handle specific job situations.
5. Case Study Interview: Like a situational interview, but requires the job candidate to diagnose and correct organizational challenges during the meeting.
6. Stress: Interview designed to create anxiety and put pressure on applicants to see how they respond.

Other Interview Variables:

1. Structured vs. Non-Structured or Directed vs. Non-Directed: A non-structured or non-directed interview is when an interviewer uses questions developed from the answers to previous questions. A structured or directed interview is when questions are pre-determined and have a high level of uniformity.
2. Interview Formats:

• Panel Interview: This is when questions are directed at the job candidate from a group of specifically chosen individuals within an organization.
• Team Interview: This is when a candidate is interviewed by members of the team that they will be working with.
• Group Interview: This is when multiple job candidates are interviewed at one time.
• One-on-One Interview: This is the classic interview when the candidate is interviewed by only one individual who is usually the hiring manager for that position.
• Phone Interview: Often used as a precursor to a face-to-face interview, a phone interview is generally used to screen out undesirable applicants without committing large blocks of time to the formal interview process by the organization.
• Video Interview: A new and controversial method of screening employment applications that is riddled with dangerous discrimination factors.
• Restaurant Interview: An interview in which the potential candidate is taken to a meal and evaluated within a public setting. Etiquette and manners as well as verbal and body language queues are closely watched to find out how the job candidate interacts with the general public or in intimate work-related situations.

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