The interview is the most useful tool in employment process.

Its purpose is to provide

the candidate with details about the job and the business, to give the candidate a favorable

impression of the company and to discover those aspects of a candidate including attitude,

personality, interest, motives, skills, capabilities, etc.,

There are different types in approaching an interview, from completely unstructured in

which the interviewers are free to ask anything to the candidate, to highly structured interview

where there is a standardized scoring key to evaluate each answer. During the process, the

candidate may encounter these types of interviews - One-on-one interviews which involve an

interviewer only interviewing one applicant, Serial interviews which involve a series of single

interviews, Return interviews which are similar to serial interviews with the difference being a

passing of time between the first and subsequent interview, Panel interviews which have

multiple interviewers asking questions and evaluating answers of the same candidate at the

same time, Group interviews which have multiple applicants answering questions during the

same interview, Face-to-face interviews which both the interviewer and the candidate are in the

same room, Telephone interviews which are often used to screen applicants but do not allow

the use of visual cues, Video conference interviews which are conducted at remote sites where

the applicant and the interviewer can hear and see each other, but the setting is not as

personal, nor is the image and vocal quality of the interview as sharp as in face-to-face

interviews and Written interviews which involve the applicant answering a series of written

questions and then sending the answers back through regular mail or through email.

A candidate must be prepared in different types of interview questions. This includes

Open Questions in which the candidates will often not only reply with the facts and issues but

also with their feelings and attitudes, closed questions which usually only produce a ‘yes’ or a

‘no’ answer, probing questions tend to be quite specific and predictable, and they are normally

used when the interviewee is being over-talkative or when the conversation is drifting a bit,
hypothetical questions where the interviewers often ask the ‘What if?’ question and summarizing

questions in which the interviewers ask to clarify and confirm what you have said

In an interview, it is not only the candidate that should be assessed, but also the

interviewer. The interviewers must possess the skills, professional knowledge, manners and

ability in interviewing. According to Bingham and Moore, an interview must have the following

principles to avoid problems and errors - The interviewers should provide full privacy for

conducting the interview, should treat their candidates warmly and nicely, must be straight

forward and frank rather than clever, should ask the questions that are understandable, should

adopt a courteous approach towards the candidate, must listen attentively and patiently, should

understand the candidate’s point of view and has to keep himself away from the bias, prejudice,

personal judgment and whims and lastly their decision should base on the performance of the

candidates. A successful interviewer will have a high possibility of selecting the best candidate

with the help of interview technique and by following the said principles.