Job interview formats

Naf

Just interested in opinions really, particularly anyone who works in HR/Recruitment.

Just had an interview this morning, and its one of these formats that I really don't think makes for a good interview. Where there is a list of set questions, and that's all that they ask - no more, no less. Then you get scored points for what you say, your interview is marked like an exam and highest scorer gets the job.
I just don't see how that actually finds out enough about your suitability for a job; plus I'm far too honest and so feel I am likely to lose out to someone who just lies their way through with all the 'right' answers.
Surely an interview should draw from what they've seen on your CV/application and actually ask relevant questions about you.
I appreciate this format certainly means a company can't be accused of any kind of discrimination; but that's the only benefit I can really see.

hcb42

there has to be structure, to be fair to all.

I dont think i have ever had an interview as clinical as you describe, but have had plenty of competency based interviews, they are designed to assess certain competencies by your answers, it isnt always just about having a "chat".

at the end of the day, in most decent companies the questions will be designed to determine both the most experienced person and the best fit for the organisation in terms of the soft skills etc.

heretolearn_2

We pretty much do this when we interview, but we also ask some individual questions if there's anything in the CV or said that triggers them.

We do this so that we give all the candidates the same chance, don't forget to ask something important(!) and it means you can compare like for like, whereas if every interview is just random stuff then it turns out really hard to evaluate one person against another.

We do score but the top scorer doesn't always get the job. We look at the top two or three - but doing the scoring clearly sorts out the best candidates in a simple way, for us to then choose from. Usually there's no much between the top two in marks, maybe one interviewer scored A higher and B second, and the other scored B higher and A second. You can then look at where you feel each candidate was stronger or weaker than the other and decide which is the most important factor.

It's a good system.

InsideInsurance

There is a number of reasons why this type of interviewing is done though typically it is the preserve of more volume based roles.

When we rolled it out, under the name of "recruit for attitude" it was not the case that the highest scoring ones were the ones that got the job. There was a minimum score for the 1st choices, if there was insufficient that achieved that score for the number of vacancies then there was a 2nd band that could be called on. If there still wasnt enough then it was back to more interviews. If there was more people scoring high enough then it was purely managers choice who they hire out of that group.

One of the potential issues is that who is good for the company is not necessarily the sort of person that a team leader or manager wants to hire (from a short term perspective at least). By deskilling interviewing to scoring then (a) you can push it down to lower grades to conduct it with less training and (b) can get HR/ senior management to have greater influence for their corporate vision.

As an example of this.... "where do you see yourself in 2 years?". A manager may say they want a driven person and a go getter and so someone who says they'd like to be a team manager or shift manager they like. The reality when you are hiring over 2,000 staff a year is that the vast majority will not be a team leader in 2 years as attrition in those roles are tiny. So you find you lose a lot of staff when they realise they wont achieve their objectives. HR or more senior management therefore would want the majority of those 2,000 to be those that want just to do their job and go home with no dreams of rapid promotion or anything else

Coraline

I've had several decades experience in interviewing at various organisations and I favour the conversational approach rather than the "tick the box" approach.

I've never come across a system like you describe, I'd actually love to read this interview form and the scoring "system," as frankly it sounds like a load of BS to me!

A job interview, in my experience should be a dialogue, putting the candidate at ease and engaging in a conversation (with structure of course, relating to pertinent skills & qualifications needed to perform in the job) that identifies what the prospect wants in the job and what they can do to better the organisation.

And conversely, to suss out if the culture of the organisation and the people this candidate would be working for would be a good fit.

I have always used open ended questions along the lines of asking:

*Was there ever a time that you made an error, and how did you deal with it?
*Have you ever had to make a decision on your supervisors behalf, and could you explain how you judged the situation to come to your conclusion?
*What do you enjoy about working most?

I just pulled those out of the top of my head but the point is the more you get the candidate talking you can suss out pretty quickly their personality, ability, and other traits.

I avoided the standard questions like "Tell me about yourself" and "Where do you see yourself in 5 years" and "Why do you want this job?" because those are stock questions that have been floating around for yonks and most people come prepared with stock answers to tell you what they think you want to hear.

DKLS

We used a similar system at the Uni, I hated it, we had to ask exactly the same questions in exactly the same way they also insisted that panel interviews were held 5 of us to interview each candidate, which you may expect at board level but for admin staff? poor sods often didnt know who to look at.

It was a soulless experience for us and the candidates but hey it was "fair".

t0rt0ise

I had an interview like this not long ago. They would ask the question but not try to draw anything more out of me so when they asked a certain question and I got the wrong end of the stick about it, they didn't say anything but let me carry on talking. It was only when I got outside that I realised what they really wanted. It seemed to me to be so mean to not ask further questions to draw the candidate out. What they had asked was "And how are you at communicating?". Whatever happened to the art of interviewing? It would be just as easy to give the candidates a sheet with the questions on it and just get them to write the answers.

They also asked "what do you expect to be doing in five years?" I'm 58 for goodness sake. It's a lazy, ageist question.

Coraline

t0rt0ise wrote: »

I had an interview like this not long ago. They would ask the question but not try to draw anything more out of me so when they asked a certain question and I got the wrong end of the stick about it, they didn't say anything but let me carry on talking. It was only when I got outside that I realised what they really wanted. It seemed to me to be so mean to not ask further questions to draw the candidate out. What they had asked was "And how are you at communicating?". Whatever happened to the art of interviewing? It would be just as easy to give the candidates a sheet with the questions on it and just get them to write the answers.

They also asked "what do you expect to be doing in five years?" I'm 58 for goodness sake. It's a lazy, ageist question.

It's absolutely ridiculous, I agree. The interview I had for my current job followed more or less a standard template that the interviewer was forced to follow.

We are now colleagues as I've been promoted, but she is about the same age as myself and expressed how crazy the process is.

You cannot score numeric scores to subjective questions fairly across the board. The whole point of the interview, full stop, is to sort out IS THIS CANDIDATE SOMEONE WHO WE CAN WORK WITH AND WILL BE HAPPY WORKING WITH US!??!?!?

Jarbuhu

I don't agree with a lot of interviews that are performed today, but it might also be one of the reasons why I am having trouble finding work. It just seems like they're running an assembly line and don't want to know the person sitting in front of them.

Coraline

Jarbuhu wrote: »

I don't agree with a lot of interviews that are performed today, but it might also be one of the reasons why I am having trouble finding work. It just seems like they're running an assembly line and don't want to know the person sitting in front of them.

Which is very odd because you would think the people conducting the interview would want to understand and get to know the person they're considering hiring!

It really does my head in, three months now and we cannot get proper interviews in place to fill my former position.

Naf

heretolearn wrote: »

We pretty much do this when we interview, but we also ask some individual questions if there's anything in the CV or said that triggers them.

We do this so that we give all the candidates the same chance, don't forget to ask something important(!) and it means you can compare like for like, whereas if every interview is just random stuff then it turns out really hard to evaluate one person against another.

We do score but the top scorer doesn't always get the job. We look at the top two or three - but doing the scoring clearly sorts out the best candidates in a simple way, for us to then choose from. Usually there's no much between the top two in marks, maybe one interviewer scored A higher and B second, and the other scored B higher and A second. You can then look at where you feel each candidate was stronger or weaker than the other and decide which is the most important factor.

It's a good system.

Obviously I expect most interviews to have the same/very similar questions to glean similar information. So I'm not saying I object to an interviewer having set questions/prompts. Its the (to appropriate the language used by another poster) clinical nature of actually totting up points based on what you've said. Comparing like for like is one thing (and a good one), but FPTP just doesn't seem like the right way to interview.

InsideInsurance wrote: »

One of the potential issues is that who is good for the company is not necessarily the sort of person that a team leader or manager wants to hire (from a short term perspective at least). By deskilling interviewing to scoring then (a) you can push it down to lower grades to conduct it with less training and (b) can get HR/ senior management to have greater influence for their corporate vision

I see the point. But what also happens is the interview also becomes almost completely impersonal; which surely defeats the object?

Coraline wrote: »

A job interview, in my experience should be a dialogue, putting the candidate at ease and engaging in a conversation (with structure of course, relating to pertinent skills & qualifications needed to perform in the job) that identifies what the prospect wants in the job and what they can do to better the organisation.

Precisely my point. Granted, the same ground will probably be covered in both types of interview; but the dialogue gives much more scope for a candidate to express themselves and to find out more about how they think. I think, then, what I most find strange is the way such an interview has (in my experience) almost completely removed any 'further questioning'. The interviewers I have had 'perform' these interviews 'on' me have asked the stated question, noted my response and moved on, without once picking up on anything I have said, or relating it to my CV/Application.

Coraline wrote: »

I have always used open ended questions along the lines of asking:

*Was there ever a time that you made an error, and how did you deal with it?
*Have you ever had to make a decision on your supervisors behalf, and could you explain how you judged the situation to come to your conclusion?
*What do you enjoy about working most?

Oh, it was full (as full as 11 questions can be) of "Give me an example of a time when..." and "What would you do if..." type questions.

DKLS wrote: »

... but hey it was "fair".

The irony is, it really isn't. You're probably finding out everything about some candidates, and practically nothing about others.

t0rt0ise wrote: »

They also asked "what do you expect to be doing in five years?" I'm 58 for goodness sake. It's a lazy, ageist question.

I'm still in the mindset of preparing for the "what's your biggest weakness" question, when I don't think I've been asked that in 8 years. Instead I'm having to try & anticipate which scenario they're likely to want to know about so I can "remember a time when..."