Types of Job Interviews

Part 2

This is part 2 about types of job interviews. If you missed the first part, visit types of interviews to see what you missed!

Behavioral Interview

One of the most trendy types of job interviews are the behavioral interviews. In this style of interviewing, the candidate is put in situations and asked to describe how they addressed the situation in the past. The foundation of this style of interview technique is that past performance is a good predictor of future results.

The benefit of this type of technique is twofold, first the candidate often uses past situations to address the question at hand. When the candidate does not have a situation that addresses the question, it indicates a level of experience. For example a supervisor who has never had to discipline an employee must have either not been much of a hands on supervisor or does not really have much experience.

The second benefit of this technique is that it can put a candidate at ease when talking about past situations and the communication flows more easily. When asked to address hypothetical questions, a candidate must give a hypothetical answer. This often means the answer given is what he or she thinks is the answer the interviewer wants to hear. When using the behavioral technique the candidate is much more likely to rely on past experience. This gives an interviewer much better insight into how the candidate things and behaves in a given situation.

The down side to this type of interview technique is that an untrained interviewer can lose control of the interview. This means when a candidate is allowed to dominate the conversation with long drawn out responses, follow up questions and flow to the interview can be disrupted. Also poorly worded questions can confuse the candidate and time can be wasted with situational examples that are off mark.

Presentation Interview

This style of interview technique is often used for people who must make presentations in front of audiences. Examples of this would include, sales, marketing and training types of positions. This is sometimes called a stress interview.

These types of job interviews are kind of a trial by fire type of interview. It is used to give the company a sense of the candidates ability to communicate to a group and think on their feet. It is often the last stage of the interview process reserved for the final candidate(s) who have made it through prior interviews.

Types of Job Interviews Summary

This is a summary of the different types of interviews and each one has it's benefits and it is up to you and your organization to decide which fits best into your recruiting plan... and it may be a combination of techniques. One thing is for sure, that each organization needs to be sure to have a plan in place. Equally important is to insure that each person on the interview team is trained on these interviewing techniques. Preparation should include Interview questions and a good tactical understanding of how to conduct interviews. This will result in the best chance for your company to be successful in hiring top candidates.

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