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 get to this interview, she may have reviewed hundreds of résumés and developed criteria she would use for the selection of the right person for the job. She has probably planned a timeline for hiring, developed hiring criteria, determined a compensation package for the job, and enlisted the help of other managers to interview candidates. She may have even performed a number of phone interviews before bringing only a few of the best candidates in for interviews. It is likely she has certain qualities in mind that she is hoping you or another candidate will possess. Much work goes into the process of hiring someone, with selection being an important step in that process. A hiring process done correctly is time-consuming and precise. The interviewer should already have questions determined and should be ready to sell 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.