INTERVIEWS AS A METHOD OF SELECTION
As it is vital to have
employees with right skills to do a better job, to be cost-benefited to the
Organisation and to be within the legal obligations, Selection is important for
an Organisation (Kumar and Gupta, 2014). According Kumar and Gupta (2014)
reception of applications, screening them, creating an application bank,
holding selection tests and selection interviews, directing for medical
examinations and conducting reference checks should be carried out in the
process of Selection.
As per Armstrong, M.
(2006) mainly Selection methods could be segregated as interview, assessment
centres and tests. Selection is done by matching with the relevant roll of the
job and person specification such as characteristics, competencies, experience,
qualifications, education and training of the applicants (Armstrong,
2010). In Armstrong (2010) it is further explained that individual
interviews and assessment centres are the main methods of Selection and it
could be supported by conducting selection tests.
For Example, in the leading
Outsourcing Company that I previously worked for when Selecting Quality
Assurance Associates after they are being interviewed and the shortlisted the candidates
are given selection tests.
Interview
Interview being the most common method of Selection, its
target is to evaluate suitability of candidates that they are capable of
handling the job (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
Arrangement
and Planning of Interview
Though one-to-one interviews are frequently used method, to
avoid the interviewer being bias a second interviewer or a board or panel of
interviewer are used for the purpose if interviewing
(Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). The method of conducting an
Interview should be planned as the beginning, middle and end (Armstrong
& Taylor, 2014).
For Example, in the above said leading Outsourcing Company,
when Selecting Network Developers, the initial interview is with the Project
Manager and the secondary interview is with a panel of Interviewers comprising
of the Project Manager, Country Manager and the CEO.
Types
of Interviews
According
to Armstrong, M (2006) Interviews could
be categorised as Individual Interviews, Interviewing panels and Selection board.
Individual
interview
Individual
interview being a face to face discussion and as there is possibility of being
biased a second interviewer or interview panel is used (Armstrong, M 2006).
For Example, in the leading Logistic Company that I
work for when Selecting drivers and machine operators, the transport manager
interviews the candidates.
Interviewing Panel
Two or more people interviewing a candidate can be described as an
interviewing panel (Armstrong, M., 2006),
For Example, in the leading Outsourcing Company the HR Manager and a
Project manager interview a candidate when Selection is done to Select
Associates.
Selection Board
Selection board is a formal way of interviewing and usually a larger
panel of selectors interview a candidate and the advantage is that different
people being able to examine an applicant in different angles at the same time
(Armstrong, M., 2006).
According to Anderson, N (2003) use of technologies
such as Telephone, video-based
interviews helps the organization to save a lot of time and money (Anderson,
2003). Anderson, N (2003) further
explains that for high demanding and high-risk jobs such as pilot and
other military personnel Virtual Reality Technology, that reduces costs, is
used in selection and training. It is described that Interactive
Voice Response technology i.e. telephonic interview and internet-based
screening is cost-effectively used for screening and Selection (Anderson, N 2003). Armstrong
& Taylor, (2014) explains of two types of methods of interviews name
Structured Interviews and Unstructured Interviews.
For Example, the said
leading Outsourcing Company as the CEO is based overseas, when Selecting candidates
for higher possessions final interviews are conducted by way of conference
video calls.
Structured
Interviews
All candidates being interviewed
in the same framework by asking same questions and focusing on the same
attributes and behaviours etc that match with the relevant job and rating them
using a scoring system is the basic mode this type of interviewing (Armstrong
& Taylor, 2014).
For Example, in the said
Outsourcing Company when interviews are conducted to Select data entry
associates, the same interview framework is followed.
Unstructured
Interviews
This mode of interviewing judges the general impression of
the candidate and mostly being a general discussion (Armstrong
& Taylor, 2014) and in unstructured interviews questions asked are not
predetermined (Mathis & Jackson, 2010).
Semi-Structured
Interviews
According to Mathis & Jackson (2010), a type of interviewing
that lie between Structured and Unstructured Interviews is called
Semi-Structured Interviews. When conducting telephone interviews before calling
a candidate for a structed interview this Semi-Structured Interviewing method is
used.
References
- Armstrong, M (2006). A handbook of human resource management practice, 10th edn, Kogan Page, Ltd.
- Armstrong, M. (2010). Armstrong's essential human resource management practice. London: Kogan Page.
- Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S. 2014. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Man-agement Practice. 13th ed. Ashford Colour press Ltd. London.
- Kumar, S. and Gupta, A. (2014). A Study on Recruitment & Selection Process with Reference. ResearchGate. [Online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268210664.
- Mathis, R. L. & Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human Resource Management, 13e, Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Hi Nilushi , Interviwes are the main method of selection as we all know and totally agredd with you , According to Sang, C. (2005) An interview provides an organization the scope to learn more about the applicants, who come for an interview, while the applicants get an opportunity to become more familiar with the demands of a given position. Interviews enable both the parties to exchange information, ask questions and also help in evaluating the potential for establishing a professional working relationship with the organization.
ReplyDeleteThank you Maheshani for your valuable comment. Interviewing is the most widely used method of selection, and since it is used as a tool a person evaluating another in somewhat strained and artificial circumstances it may be subjective, unreliable (Saviour et al., 2016).
DeleteHi Nilushi. This is an interesting topic. The selection methods vary from organization to organization according to its needs. According to Anwar (2016), some companies prioritize various examinations, while others prioritize interviews and reference checks. Similarly, for applicants for lower-level posts, a single brief selection interview may be sufficient, although applicants for managerial positions may be interviewed by a number of specialists (Ali, 2014).
ReplyDeleteThank you Ashanthi for your valuable comment which I agree. Selection process is a hiring procedure which uses verifying methods to find out information about the applicant and compare them with the job specification. There is no standard procedure adopted by all organisations with regard to selection Flippo (1984).
ReplyDeleteHi Nilushi, Individual interviews related to a person specification, which sets out the knowledge and skills required, and indicates the type of experience that will be most appropriate. If only one interviewer is used, there is more scope for a biased or superficial decision, and this is one reason for using a second interviewer or an interviewing panel (Armstrong, 2014).
ReplyDeleteThank you Chulanga. And agree with you. According to Saviour et al. (2016) in selection process interviewing the most widely method. When interviewing is used as a tool of selection a significant amount of subjectivity may occur and therefore the process may be unreliable
DeleteHi Nilushi, good topic and i can add some points to this .Most applicants try to put their best foot forward in selection interviews to increase their chances to get a job offer. In order to create a favorable impression, they may use honest impression management to stress their true qualifications but also deceptive impression management (i.e., faking, Levashina and Campion, 2006). Both, honest and deceptive impression management are very prevalent and previous studies found that up to 99% of the applicants use corresponding impression management tactics in selection interviews (Levashina and Campion, 2007; Bourdage et al., 2018).
ReplyDeleteThank you Nishad. According to Armstrong and Taylor (2014) there are advantages and disadvantages of interviews. Interviewer getting the opportunity to ask probing questions about the candidates is a direct advantage and lack of validity, lack of reliability, and even a skill of interviewer may lead to biased and subjective judgement are some of the disadvantages. Selection tests can a supplement to the interview because measuring intelligence or general ability, can be evaluated.
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ReplyDeleteHi Nilushi, Interesting post. Existing literature on employee selection contains an abundance of knowledge of how selection should take place but almost nothing about how it occurs in practice. This paper presents an ethnomethodological-discourse analytical real-time study of how selection decisions are made in situ. The main findings suggest that selection decision making is characterised by ongoing practical deliberation involving four interrelated discursive processes: assembling versions of the candidates; establishing the versions of the candidates as factual; reaching selection decisions; and using selection tools as sense making devices. In addition, this paper identifies two basic forms of selection decision making: one characterised by initial agreement and one characterised by initial disagreement. In each basic form of decision making, selectors reason through the four discursive processes in a methodical, situated and practical manner in order to construct local versions of the candidates and make ‘reasonable’ selection decisions. (Pernilla Bolander and Jörgen Sandberg, 2013)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ramesh. The main goal of the selection is to identify suitable candidates by forecasting the level of capacity that they use for the organization’s success. The characteristics of the applicants, competencies, experience, qualifications, education and training match with the person specification to select the best candidates by using the relevant selection methods which consist of application forms, interviews and references and also, several selection tests and assessment centres should be added (Armstrong and Taylor 2014).
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