Chapter 2 : Interview Types
Topics covered in this snack-sized chapter:
Common types of job interviews include:
- Exit Interview (When someone leaves a company voluntarily)
A phone interview is a useful method of pre-selecting or screening a number of potential candidates for a job by describing job roles and responsibility.
- It helps narrow the candidate pool and selects out those who shall be invited to a personal interview.
A phone interview may be conducted to screen the applicant for information’s such as availability, salary expectations and other preliminary information.
You will meet with several individuals at one time, typically sitting around a conference table.
Candidates are requested to answer questions of several interviewers.
- Interviewers take turns asking you prepared questions.
- Other candidates will be asked the same questions.
- Answers will be compared to find most suitable candidate.
The candidates can be asked to resolve a certain problematic situation raised by the panel.
- The interviewers seek to know how well a candidate can utilize his or her knowledge and skills in real-life situation.
The most common interview is the one to one interview.
The One to One Job Interview is a conversation and both parties will end the conversation with an opinion.
- The interviewer: Is the candidate right for the job?
- The interviewee: Is the organization right for him or her?
The interviewer will ask questions of a technical nature and of a general nature.
- General questions will analyze your problem solving abilities.
- Technical questions analyze your specific problem solving abilities.
Fit for the job questions
- Will team members like you?
- Will you like team members?
Use of “rude” questions
“You are a fool why should we hire you”?
The interviewer seeks to make the applicant uncomfortable with rude questions.
Designed to find if applicants can handle stress.
Typical questions
- "With your lack of relevant experience, what makes you think you can do this job?"
- "You seem too much timid to handle these responsibilities"
The stress could be presented in a situation or disguised in the interviewer's behavior, such as:
- Protracted silence after hearing your answer to a particular question
- A confrontational or argumentative attitude
Stress approaches may include:
Rapid-fire questioning.
Criticism of your interview or past work performance.
Silence in the beginning or following an answer to a question asked of the applicant.
Unclear instructions.
Being confronted by the interviewer.
- OK to ask for clarification
How one handles unexpected questions is observed and assessed by the interviewer.
Interviewees should not take the stress tactics personally.
Exit interviews are interviews conducted with departing employees, just before they leave.
The primary aim of the exit interview from the employer's perspective is to learn reasons for the person's departure.
Exit interviews are also an opportunity for the organization to enable transfer of knowledge and experience from the departing employee to a successor or replacement.
Good exit interviews should also yield useful information about the employer organization, to assess and improve all aspects of:
Exit interviews are nevertheless a unique chance to survey and analyze the opinions of departing employees.
While leaving an organization, departing employees are liberated, and as such provide a richer source of objective feedback than the employed staff.
