Interview Styles

Table of Contents

There are several different types of interviews. We will look at them individually:

Often conducted by HR or Personnel staff, the focus is on determining an initial shortlist. These interviews may often be conducted over the telephone.
Primarily concerned with establishing a match between your background and the requirements of the job.
What you are like as a person is not as important as whether you have the appropriate background.

The focus is more on personality, compatibility and other personal attributes, as your credentials have already been established.
The interviewer/s are trying to answer the following questions:

What kind of person are you?

Will you fit in?

Can you work effectively within the team structure?

Decision-making in this kind of interview is often based on subjective gut feeling and instinct.

Screening interviews are unlikely to involve a panel, but selection interviews frequently do. Panel numbers can vary from 2-6, with more than 6 being rare.
More formal and structured than one-to-one interviews, and provide you with less opportunity to build rapport as the person asking the questions changes.
Treat each questioner as a sole interviewer and address your answers to that person. Include the others by your eye contact after finishing your answer.

Competency based interviews seek examples of successful past experience in a situation, which is used as an indicator of your likely future behaviour.

The interviewers are likely to probe for more information, including things like what you said, how you reacted, or how you responded to other people.

Your preparation is critical for these interviews. Have examples ready that you can expand upon which relate directly to the requirements of the job.

You will be asked a series of general questions supplemented by probing questions to draw out evidence of your competencies.