Interviewing for the Selection of Staff

Edgar Anstey, Edith O. Mercer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138293625
• eBook ISBN: 9781351866729
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

This book, first published in 1956, is intended for those who interview people to assess their suitability for appointment or promotion to a particular position of employment. The authors discuss different methods of interviewing, how to create appropriate questions for the interview, and how to reach conclusions with the answers given. The authors also include a section which gives advice and guidance to a person who is about to be interviewed.

Chapter 1

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

THIS is a book for those who from time to time interview people to assess their suitability for appointment or promotion to a particular job. It is not intended for those who regularly conduct interviews as their main professional activity. For most people, however, interviewing is something which, like making speeches, they intermittently find themselves having to do, especially after they reach a certain degree of seniority in their chosen walk of life. Most frequently they find that such interviewing has to do with the filling, by appointment, promotion or transfer, of a position in the organisation with which they are connected.

In the course of preliminary enquiries about practice in central and local government services, in the public corporations, in hospitals and in businesses, the writers found that a selection interview of some kind was used for almost all new appointments in all the organisations. Exceptions were some appointments of lower-grade manual workers and, in the case of one large organisation, of clerical entrants, who were chosen, as clerical entrants to the Civil Service have been, by written examination only. Interviews were also used by most large organisations in connection with most promotions, although there were some exceptions in the case of promotions to the highest grades of all. Though selection interviews are thus widely used and a number of books and pamphlets on the subject have been published (details of some are given in the bibliography at the end of this book), the intermittent interviewer seldom finds that his need for a little guidance on interviewing is recognised by those who ask him to undertake it. Indeed, it usually seems to be assumed that an interview is something which just happens. He may find that a certain code of procedure has grown up in his particular organisation or department, and he will naturally feel some obligation to adhere to it, but within this code he may find little detailed help. The result is that many people are, especially at the outset, ill at ease about their interviewing, but, because it seems to be assumed that interviewing is a task which needs no special skill and which can be undertaken by anyone at any time, they do not realise that their own, often unconfessed, disquiet is shared by others, nor that it would be possible to convert their interviewing into something much more informative for themselves and others than it at present is.

The casualness with which the interview is treated by business firms in one State of the USA is described by Professor H. Seligson and D. Brooks in an article published in Personnel Journal in 1954 entitled “The Employment Interview as seen by the job applicants.” In most instances, they found that interviewing duties had been assigned to a supervisor, foreman, sales manager or office manager as appendages—unwelcome in many cases—to their primary jobs. Inadequate space, lack of privacy and interruptions were commonplace. Over two-thirds of the interviewers failed to introduce themselves. Leading questions were avoided, but questions calling for ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers were frequent, and many interviewers failed to obtain from applicants a job history and reasons for leaving the last job. While the same comments might not necessarily apply elsewhere, it cannot safely be assumed that practices in this country would look much better under a similar examination.

Included in the advice which was most kindly offered by a number of officials and business representatives who guided the writers’ early planning of this book, was the recommendation that the book on selection interviewing that was needed was one which started from scratch and assumed no previous expertise in the reader. This therefore has been our aim. Those whose interviewing experience goes much beyond anything that this book assumes must be asked to bear our main purpose in mind if they decide to read further.

Interviewing is a difficult subject, part art, part science. ‘Born interviewers’ do not exist, nor do the writers of this book pretend to hold the secret of perfect interviewing. We have each, however, had occasion in our professional careers to consider the technique of the interview, to gain experience in its practice, and to study the psychological principles that underlie good interviewing. In the light of our experience, we see no reason why an intelligent person with a modicum of skill in dealing with his fellow-men and with knowledge of the job for which selection is to be made should not make a fair success of interviewing provided that he sets about his task in a sensible way. The object of this book is to help him to do so.

Finally, we recognise the fact that every interviewer is up against the time factor. While we have sought to indicate the ground that might be covered in the ample time that every interviewer would wish to have at his disposal, we have at the same time striven to relate our advice to what is practicable within the strict limits of the time likely to be available.

Chapter 2

THE AIM OF THE SELECTION INTERVIEW

THE INTERVIEW AS A STAGE IN THE EMPLOYMENT CYCLE

A SELECTION interview is one part of the selection process, which in its turn is only a part of the longer process in which individual and job are brought together. In any large organisation, selection follows on the collection of a field of potential candidates from whom to choose and is followed by the appointment of a suitable candidate, his introduction to his work, his training in or on the job, and his gradual gaining of experience; in many cases there is in due course promotion to more intricate or responsible work and the task of training others to follow in their turn, with eventual retirement creating a vacancy to complete the cycle. Each step presupposes certain steps which have been taken before and others which will be taken afterwards. Selection cannot be successful unless previous education and training of the right sort have been available to provide candidates with the necessary qualifications, and unless a good recruitment policy has ensured that enough of them apply to fill the vacancies. Again, the value of sound selection is nullified unless care is taken to ensure that the person selected is properly ‘inducted’ into his work, given reasonable conditions of service, and afforded opportunity to develop his capacities for useful and personally satisfying work in which he is encouraged to continue. Even in the smallest organisation, consisting only of the proverbial ‘man and boy,’ the same principles hold good, though their application is greatly simplified. The ‘man’ has to decide how best to attract suitable ‘boys’ to apply before he interviews them, and he has to make the training and conditions of service of his assistant sufficiently congenial to keep him contented in his job for a reasonable length of time.

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INTERVIEW

The selection interview then may have several, and on occasion all, of the following functions:

(a) To give the candidate information about the job;

(b) To obtain or check basic facts about the candidate;

(c) To permit observation of the candidate’s outward appearance and manner;

(d) To test, by oral question and answer, his capacities as relevant to the job;

(e) To enable an assessment to be made of his personality (using this term in the most general sense to include both intelligence and personal qualities);

(f) To influence the candidate towards accepting the job if the interviewer wishes him to take it, or towards reconciling himself to the fact that his application will not be accepted.

In a small business concern, a single selection interview may have to perform all the above tasks, and in such cases its flexibility has certain advantages. To take the simplest example, if the candidate is not satisfied with what he is told, perhaps the pay is too low, that may be the end of the matter; or, if the interviewer thinks a candidate particularly suitable, he may be able to offer him slightly higher starting pay as an inducement to take the job.

In a large organisation, however, when the starting pay and conditions of service are fixed, or when a large number of candidates have to be interviewed, the selection procedure can be rendered more efficient by reducing the tasks of the interviewer; for example, by providing adequate information about the job beforehand. This information can be given by means of a talk to all assembled candidates, by a tour of the office or works, or by the issue for preliminary reading of a descriptive leaflet or memorandum. Such devices ensure that precious interview time is not wasted in supplying simple factual information about the job, but that discussion of the job at interview is supplementary and personal to the candidate; it may thus provide useful information about his attitudes and interests as well as fill gaps in his information. That there is need for such information is revealed by the incident of the Army recruit who expressed a wish to be a batman because he was “fond of animals.”

Again, a well-planned application form can provide a good groundwork of information about the candidate’s past record and qualifications. It can be used first for a paper sift of applicants, some of whom may clearly not qualify for further consideration, and for the preparation of a short list for interview of those candidates who seem prima facie suitable. It can then be used at interview both to supply the basic factual information and to provide pointers for discussion. The advantages to the interviewers or interviewing Board of being able to concentrate their attention on relatively few ‘probables’ rather than on an excessive number of candidates including some wildly ‘improbables’ are so manifest that in our view there can seldom be justification for omitting an application form from the selection procedure.

THE EXTENT TO WHICH A CANDIDATE CAN BE STUDIED THROUGH THE INTERVIEW AND OTHER MEANS

Let us turn now to the central purpose of the interview in selection, which is to assess the progress made to date by the candidate in the light of the opportunities available to him and hence to predict the effectiveness with which he will deal with the tasks required of him in a particular job or career. To do this, each candidate must be considered from several aspects:

(1) His knowledge:

(a) General educational level;

(b) Particular knowledge or skill (including previous occupational experience).

(2) His general ability (his capacity to learn as distinct from what he has learned).

(3) Evidence of any special aptitudes, even if undeveloped.

(4) His disposition as shown in:

(a) His effectiveness with other people (his skill in human relationships);

(b) His effectiveness in work (customary degree of energy, drive, thoroughness, care).

(5) His aims and interests (in relation to the work he may do).

(6) His physical capacities.

(7) The opportunities he has had (in relation to the use he has made of them).

These headings are derived from the Seven Point Plan which was originated by Alec Rodger and is the subject of his Paper No. 1 published by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology; they are elaborated in Chapter 3.

That there may be other and better ways than the interview in which some of the required information about a candidate can be obtained becomes obvious when we study the seven headings listed above. Indeed, it has been the task of those psychologists who have made a special study of selection methods to devise and refine other means of assessment in order to set the interview free to perform those tasks for which it remains the best instrument.

Of the seven headings, knowledge and ability (1 and 2) can usually be assessed more surely by written or practical examinations or tests than by interview. The feasibility of combining such tests with the interview is discussed later in this chapter and in Appendix 1. Special aptitudes (3) can also sometimes be explored by tests, provided that the precise nature of the special aptitude, be it mechanical, manual, musical, or any other type, is known with tolerable certainty and provided that an appropriate test is known to exist.

Disposition and aims (4 and 5) are difficult to assess by any selection technique, but at any rate in the absence of the complex professional techniques of the psychologist (which it is assumed are not available in connection with the kind of selection interviews discussed in this book) are best judged through the interview and the assessment of past record which the interview makes possible.

Most of what comes under the heading of physical capacities (6) is properly the subject of medical examination by a medical practitioner, although some physical attributes, such as appearance, speech, manner, carriage, may be assessed at interview. Circumstances and opportunities (7) will to some extent be known from the record form but the interview may throw much light upon them.

When time permits and the jobs are sufficiently important or numerous to justify taking considerable pains to find the most suitable people to fill them, there is much to be said for combining written tests and interview, and not trusting exclusively to either one or the other. The feasibility of doing this will depend upon the circumstances of the case. For certain professional appointments, such as in law, medicine and architecture, where a long period of training is essential, the problem of selection is eased by the fact that candidates are required as a matter of course to have passed an examination organised by the appropriate professional body. Candidates holding this qualification may be assumed to possess the necessary knowledge of their subject, and selection among them can be by interview. For some other jobs possession of the educational certificate appropriate to the level of the job, e.g., the General Certificate of Education or a university degree, may be considered a necessary and sufficient indication of intellectual ability to qualify a candidate for interview. When the number of vacancies is large, however, and the competition for them is expected to be keen, it may be considered necessary to sort the candidates out as accurately as possible by means of a full-scale written examination as well as interviews. Various methods of combining the two processes in the most efficient way are discussed in Appendix 1. All that need be said here is that, although a full-scale written examination requiring expert marking of the papers by skilled examiners is probably out of the question for any organisation other than a very large one, it may be well worth while for a small or medium-sized organisation to consider the desirability of using short written tests as interview-ai...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Author’s Preface
• 1 Purpose of the Book
• 2 The Aim of the Selection Interview
• 3 The Plan of Attack
• 4 Preliminaries and Setting
• 5 Method during Interview
• 6 Note-taking, Interview Reports and Rating Scales
• 7 The Board Interview
• 8 Multiple Interviewing
• 9 How to Study Information Provided by the Interview
• 10 The Reaching of Conclusions
• 11 The Qualifications and Training of the Interviewer
• 12 Advice to a Person about to be Interviewed
• 13 Summary
• 1 Methods of Selection by a Combination of Interview and Written Examination or Tests
• 2 An Experiment with a Rating Scale
• 3 Follow-up, as a Means of Testing and Increasing the Efficiency of the Interview
• References
• Additional Reading List
• Index