A panel interview occurs when an interview is conducted with more than one interviewer at a time. The interviewers on the panel should be individuals who have job relevant experience for the position they are evaluating. The panel can consist of supervisors, colleagues and they may take turns asking a set of prepared questions which all candidates will be asked. This is done in order to ensure that the responses between candidates can be compared. Previous research has shown that using a panel of two or more interviewers during the selection process is more reliable and valid in predicating job performance than pre-employment tests.

Panel interviews are useful as they are more reliable and job related because two or more people are used to assess one candidate, therefore more information can be gained from one candidate. Panel interviews are also useful in assessing how well a candidate handles stress while facing a number of people and assesses how a candidate interacts with different people (such as bosses, work peers or future clients). This would be especially useful in jobs which require this sort of interaction with people.

However, panel interviews can be time consuming because several people are needed to assess just one candidate and panel interviews can sometimes last longer than an individual interview as perhaps more questions would be asked. Panel interviews are useful though as a wide variety of information can be gained from one candidate. Previous research has also shown that structured interviews are better at predicting job performance than unstructured interviews. The choice of conducting a panel interview is dependent upon the organisation, resources, the job role and the competencies being evaluated.

Roth, P.L., Campion, JE., (1992). An analysis of the predictive power of the panel interview and pre-employment tests. Journal of occupational and organisational psychology, 65 (1), pp.51-60

There are several types of questions which will occur during an interview. These can be open questions, closed questions, questions which the respondent does not want to answer, reflective questions, leading questions and behavioral questions.

Open questions are questions which do not illicit a yes or no response. These types of questions give the respondent the opportunity to elaborate on a point and several topics can be discussed. An interviewer would ask this type of question if they want a more detailed response and can be helpful in finding more about a matter. This question could be a problem if the respondent is not sure how to respond, or perhaps they might talk too much and ‘take over’ the interview session. An example of an open ended question is ‘where do you see yourself in 10 years time?’ or ‘give me an example of when you had to lead a group’.  This type of question also poses problems to the interviewer and interview process itself.  Often the interviewer is uncertain how to grade responses to open questions.  Furthermore, given that the field of response is left wide open to the respondent, this type of question introduces an inherent drop in reliability (consistency) between candidates.

Closed questions illicit a limited response, which is usually a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. These questions are good for getting a quick response to a question or just getting some facts. An example of a closed question is ‘do you like working in groups?’ or ‘When did you leave your last job?’.  Closed questions rarely give the respondent an opportunity to be creative or shine.

Reflective questions are useful in cases when an interviewer wants to gain more information about a matter, or wants to clarify some points. This shows to the candidate that the interviewer is listening to what they are saying and encourages the responded to elaborate.  Reflective questions involve basically rephrasing a point. An example of a reflective question would be ‘So based on that point, you prefer to work to work with people?’ or ‘I suppose that is true; dealing with matters can be very time consuming?’.

Leading questions are questions which hint the answer to a candidate. These questions can be problematic if the interviewer wants to gain an objective view of a matter, and a candidate might be influenced by the question. It might help in cases where the interviewer might want to see the candidate’s response and see if they actually agree or disagree with a statement. An example of a leading question is ‘most people here like to work in groups, do you like this type of work?’ or ‘I assume that you get along well with people?’  This type of question, by its very nature, leads to candidate to respond in a certain way and may not therefore reflect the true person.

Behavioral questions are questions which elicit specific examples of behaviors that the respondent has demonstrated in the past.  Based on the notion that past performance is the best predictor of future performance, the interviewer will ask something like “Can you tell me about a time when you had to make a critical decision in a short space of time.  Outline the situation, your contribution and the outcome of that decision and tell me what you might do differently if that problem occurred again”.  Behavioral interviews are often seen as being highly valid predictors of job performance provided they are linked to the job by way of thorough job analysis.  However, they are less useful with those who have little working experience given that such people will have few examples to recall.

Being aware of the different types of questions in an interview will allow the interviewer and the interviewee to be better prepared.

PsyAsia International offers training in behavioral interviewing.  Please visit our training pages at our website for more details.

Interviews can either be structured or unstructured, and the main issues which have to be considered when discussing them are reliability and validity. The unstructured interview is an interviewing technique whereby questions are not specifically limited and set, and the conversation can flow freely. The questions asked in an unstructured interview can change depending on how each individual responds, and questions asked are usually open-ended. During an unstructured interview several topics can be discussed. In these cases, the interviewer usually engages in lengthy explanations of the job, and asks questions which are not necessarily predetermined by the interviewer. After the interview, errors in the information gained from the applicant can occur and the final choice maybe determined based on unclear impressions. However, unstructured interviews can help gain information which was not planned and can be helpful in areas which need more explanation.

Previous research has shown that unstructured interviews have low predictive validities. For example, Hunter and Hunter (1984) found the reasons as to why predictive validity was low during the selection process is because the questions asked where not really related to the job or were unable to be scored reliably.  Interviewers can also base their information on appearance, instead of performance on the job. Similarity influences also occur (e.g. tendency to hire someone who is similar to the interviewer).  Another problem with unstructured interviews is that it can be time consuming and because the information gathered from all the respondents is different, it is difficult to have a base for comparison, which affects reliability and validity.

Structured interviews involve questions which are set out and followed thoroughly. Each candidate is presented with the same questions and this ensures that each respondent has had the opportunity to respond to each question. Structured interviews have higher predictive validity. Structured interviews are better at predicting job performance if they are appropriately and thoroughly based on job analysis and trained interviewers are used. Structured interviews assume that intentions and actual behaviors are strongly linked. Structured interviews can also involve multiple interviewers and use well-defined rating scales with specific rating procedures. Asking candidates the same questions (standardized questioning) and taking down relevant notes during the process can also improve validity and reliability of the interview.

PsyAsia International’s registered psychologists provide professional training workshops in Behavior-based Interviewing.  The workshops take delegates through the entire process of job examination/analysis to consideration of what are the right and wrong questions to ask when attempting to elicit job-relevant responses from the candidate. The workshops teach delegates how to conduct reliable and valid structured behavioral-interviews in line with international best practice.

Hunter and Hunter (1984) in Huffcutt., AI (1994). Hunter and Hunter (1984) revisited: Interview validity for entry-level jobs. Journal of applied psychology, 79 (2), p. 184

Accurately predicting job performance is beneficial for organizations as it ensures that the right person is selected for a job. Several different assessment tools, such as interviews, application forms, psychological tests, work samples, reference checks, training experience and weighted application blanks (WAB) etc, can be used to predict performance and the effectiveness of these tools differs.  

Weighted forms involve giving weights to each possible answer on an application. This breaks down the applicants answer to gain information relating to performance. The forms usually involve self-ratings, job relevant areas and a method used to weight the answers involves rating previous accomplishments.

This form of predicting job performance has shown to be accurate, as it suggests that there is some relationship between the answers and behavior. This method can be most useful when organizations need to predict performance for a large number of similar employees. It is useful as training, testing or interviewing people can be costly. WAB can be used for selection or screening purposes.

However, consideration has to be taken when using this tool as applicants could lie or distort answers to the application blanks. Consideration has to be given to the keys developed as they might not apply to different populations.  Developing items and response categories has to be done carefully.

In any case, research in this area has clearly shown the need to develop application forms which can be scored and weighted based on job needs, rather than the traditional application form which tends to gather a lot of information about the candidate,  much of which is not relevant to performance on the job.  PsyAsia can assist HR professionals and organisations in the development of such objective, scientific and legally-defensible application forms.