6.1 Introduction

The Interview

Many of us have or will sit in a waiting room wearing our best clothes, awaiting a job (or school) interview. You can feel your palms sweat and thoughts race as you wait for your name to be called. You hope they like you. You tell yourself to remember to smile while recalling all your experiences that make you the perfect person for this job. A moment of self-doubt may occur as you wonder about the abilities of the other people being interviewed, and you hope you have more experience and make a better impression than they do. You hear your name, stand up, and give a firm handshake to the HR manager. The interview has begun.

For the HR manager to reach this interview stage, they may have reviewed hundreds of resumes and developed criteria to guide the selection of the right person for the job. They have likely planned a hiring timeline, established selection criteria, determined a compensation package, and enlisted the help of other managers to conduct interviews. They may have even conducted several phone interviews before inviting only a few of the top candidates for in-person interviews. It is likely they have certain qualities in mind that they hope you or another candidate will possess. A great deal of work goes into hiring someone, with selection being a critical step in that process. When done properly, the hiring process is both time-consuming and precise. The interviewer should already have prepared questions and be ready to promote the organization to the candidate as well.

This chapter will discuss interviewing, an important component of the selection process.

“Chapter 5: Selection” from Human Resource Management by Saylor Academy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license without attribution as requested by its original creator, except where otherwise noted. Modifications: a selection used.—Modifications: Used paragraphs one and three.