1.2 What can the interview discover?
In the following activity, you’ll start to consider how an interview might be used to obtain evidence of a particular set of skills.
Activity 1 The employer’s tale
Have a look at Figure 1 and consider how an employer might test for some of these skills and competencies in an interview. Ask yourself:
- Which competencies do you think an employer could assess confidently from a traditional question and answer interview?
- Which competencies, if any, would be more difficult to assess using interview questions alone?
- What kind of activity could be included in the recruitment process to assess the less tangible competencies?
Make sure you save your notes for this activity (either in the box below, your workbook in the interactive toolkit [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] or elsewhere), as you will be asked to refer to them later.
Comment
While most of the competencies illustrated in Figure 1 could be assessed using a traditional question and answer interview, it could be difficult to get a real sense of the following:
- Fostering a supportive, informal group atmosphere and constructive use of humour
- Listening to others and giving constructive feedback if needed
- Creating enthusiasm and initiative to make things happen.
Did you come up with the same answers as here or were there other competencies in the diagram that you felt would be difficult to assess purely by question and answer in an interview scenario?
There is not necessarily a right or wrong answer here, and a good interviewer could ask a question that elicits this kind of evidence, but the issue is that without seeing these attributes in practice, it is difficult to tell whether someone has them or not.
Using a combination of group activity and interview questions can increase the accuracy of the recruitment process, which as you have seen is important for company performance and economy.