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Should people be selected for a job based only on their interview performance?
Results so far:
| No | 83% | 892 votes | Total: 1069 votes | |
| Yes | 17% | 177 votes |
No
by Meaghan Williams
Created on: June 20, 2009
Often, the most qualified person is overlooked due to their lack of personality but sometimes, those who are not extremely outgoing are the hardest workers. Because they are not going to work to make friends or socialize, they are more likely to invest their time at work wisely. While traditional interview processes favor those with the gift of gab or those born with favorable looks, others actually possess the proper skill set to complete the job effectively and efficiently. A better way to interview would be to extend the interview process to include an unpaid trial period, but most employers cannot or will not invest the time or resources to execute such a rigorous interview process. On the other side of that style of interview, the interviewee might not have the ability to take the time off their current employment to engage in this style of interview. The benefit of having a trial period would allow the employer to assess ability and the potential employee would be able to see if they would enjoy the nature of the work. Because the interview is mostly conversational and very brief, day-to-day tasks and other important aspects of the job are overlooked. These could be tasks could be cause for the potential employee to quit shortly after accepting the position. In some cases, the potential employee could decline an offer for the position in the first place once they are aware of such tasks.
Currently, the interview process is one-sided and very much based on first impressions. First-time interviewers may lack the skills to determine whether a person is a good fit for the job or if that person is at all trainable if the position requires a certain amount of training. Some people have interviewed so frequently and have had the privilege of experiencing many different interview styles that they shine in the interview and are offered the position only to be discovered as incompetent months down the line, thus leaving the employer worse off than originally presumed.
Another group of people that are negatively affected by the traditional interview are those who lack career experience and recent graduates. Occasionally, this demographic offers the freshest insight and can absorb and develop quickly because they have not yet been able to form an opinion about work environments. Others who have worked before, come with a clouded perspective and are less likely to assimilate as quickly and easily as those not having as much experience. In a sense, those novice employees have not been spoiled or ruined by a previous work experience.
What is most unfortunate is that the potential employer may never know the gem they could employ because those people with significant aptitude did not stand out in the interview. A harsh reality is that people get nervous, people have bad days, people have other life issues that could cause them to be distracted during the interview process. Because we are all human and we have all experienced good and bad days, the traditional interview process lacks empathy and a real evaluation of pure ability to complete the tasks.
Learn more about this author, Meaghan Williams.
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Yes
by Paul Waddington
Created on: December 12, 2009 Last Updated: December 13, 2009
Yes, people should be selected for a position based only on their interview performance. This is the key instrument that can be used to judge a persons character, presentation, educational standards and other traits, good and bad, they have that do not show up on their application or resume.
With the majority of resume's nowadays being overinflated 'spin' that doesnt actually reflect what they do on a daily basis is it very difficult if not impossible to actually judge someones true capabilities through their resume or application form which is where the interview comes in as the key deciding factor in whether a candidate is suitable for the position they are applying for.
Yes it would be great to give applicants a chance to show what they can do and what they are capable of before making a decision about who is the most suitable candidate but this is often not an option for various factors. The number of applicants for the position - how many do you give this opportunity to to check you are getting the right candidate, the time involved "babysitting" them through this trial period which could be used more productively elsewhere, how long does this temporary period last for - a couple of hours, a couple of days, a couple of weeks? This would be fine if there were only a couple of applications for each position but when you have hundreds of applications how would do you chose who would be most suitable for this trial period - by an interview of course.
The interview is the only way to judge someone's character. It gives them a chance to show they have knowledge of the job and of situations they have faced and how they have dealt with these situations. It also gives the chance show they have potential to learn and improve and will be an asset in the long term and they aren't applying because there's nothing else available at the moment or if they are just going to use the job to add more waffle to their resume and then move on in a year. It gives them a chance to show their educational standards, capabilities for listening and responding, what their professional standards are and if they can make up a coherent sentence or give logical concisce answers to the questions posed to them, which are all essential qualities for future employers.
The interview is a hard situation to be in, but it is essential to see how someone handles themselves under pressure, there will be times when they will be needed to make decisions and choices on their own, regardless of what the job is and they will have to be capable of handling them instead of just crumbling and passing it on to someone else or not taking care of it effectively.
We've all been there at sometime during our careers and know what it is like to be interviewed and some interviews are easier than others but we've all come through them and moved on because of it, whether it was positive or negative experience. The employer needs to be able to meet the candidates face to face and make his judgement accordingly based on how they perform in an interview because this is the only opportunity they will have to make their decision about a candidate.
Learn more about this author, Paul Waddington.
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