Have you ever considered carrying
out a Group Interview instead of a 'bunch' of time consuming 1-on-1 interviews for a
vacancy?
We were introduced to the Group
Interview concept through Action Coach KZN some time ago.
So how does a Group
Interview 'work' and is it better than the 1-on-1 interviews that
most company's still traditionally carry out?
A client of ours carried out a Group
Interview for a fairly senior role that was also quite technical. We had
sourced candidates from several employment agencies and a few candidates who
had responded privately to an advert.
The responses from the employment
agencies were interesting, let alone the candidates. Even after a careful
explanation of how it would 'work', two of the agencies were very positive
about the process and the other was very negative.
Our client now uses the Group
Interview process, for most of their vacancies.
Responses from the candidates
being ‘group interviewed’ have been positive. After the initial nerves,
candidates appeared to relax into the process and were even interacting with
each other, let alone responding to the questions posed to them. This is obviously
beneficial to both sides.
If a company makes a firm
decision based on a first impression, it may not be the
right or best impression of a candidate. The concept of first impressions being
biased against candidates was shared in an article we recently posted (http://bit.ly/2zYEzZQ).
Depending upon the position, two or
more people conduct the Group Interview. The purpose is to have a panel who can
share some of their experiences with the candidates of what it means to
them about being part of the company.
Traditionally candidates have
approached an interview with the mindset of 'I hope I can sell myself to
this company and that they will like me enough to hire me'. We believe it
is equally important for the candidate to 'interview' the company to understand
their possible “fit” into the organisation and do they want to work for that
company. So within any interview process the key question is: do the candidate’s skills and attributes meet
what the company requires and are the company’s culture, values, aligned with
the candidates? If not the potential employment relationship is not
founded on a solid basis.
Candidate suitability can be based
on evaluating their CV, references checked and we often use a Phase 1
Questionnaire as well. With planned questions being posed to all the candidates
in one Group Interview, and then watching the inter-play between candidates the
panel and each other, gives more insight into their personality and emotional
maturity, which in turn assisted with identifying who was going to be a
good 'fit' for the organisation.
Phase three involves one or two of the successful candidates having a 1-on-1 interview with the panel. In this interview, with just one or two people (including the human resource practitioner) the panel are able to 'probe' more, with regard to some of the answers to questions already given, and also provide the candidate an opportunity to 'probe' more about the role the company requires, and possibly the remuneration structure offered.
The Group Interview advantages if planned correctly will save
quality time.
Whereas the disadvantage of the 1-on-1
interview is that they take a long time.
The Group Interview panel asking
the same questions of all the candidates achieves fairness and the candidates
have their FULL attention.
The Interview panel in the 1-on-1
interview process, after interviewing several candidates can easily be tired or
distracted, with the last candidate possibly being the most suitable but not
getting a fair evaluation, which could skew the decision process, making it unfair
and even rude for the candidates.
We have found that the Group
Interview, carried out with the process we developed for our client, having
between 2 - 3 Phases, has yielded a more constructive, fair result for all
parties involved.
