Safety in Numbers?

Sharon McKnight SPHR

I read an article (link below) about how to excel in an interview and it got me thinking about all the advice available to job applicants on the Internet. That led me down the garden path to wondering if/how all that info has changed the way employers conduct job interviews. And, then a few questions ...

What is your favorite interview style?

What works best, group interviews or one-on-one?

Do you participate in job fairs? If so, do you conduct full interviews or just get enough info to see if the candidate is a good fit?

Sharon
[URL="http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-3428-Interviewing-How-to-excel-in-every-type-of-interview/?SiteId=cbmsn43428&sc_extcmp=JS_3428_advice"]
http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-3428-Interviewing-How-to-excel-in-every-type-of-interview/?SiteId=cbmsn43428&sc_extcmp=JS_3428_advice[/URL]

cnghr

I've never participated in a group interview, but quite frankly, I don't think I'd like it. I'm sure it saves time for some companies with a lot of applicants, but I still prefer to weed people out by their resume/application and then interview one at a time. We rarely have that many applicants for any one position so in our case it doesn't make a lot of sense, anyhow.

I have participated in a couple of job fairs. The way they were structured would have made interviewing on the spot difficulat at best, so I just let the applicants know what positions were available and accepted applications or resumes and then sorted them out later.

There are so many resources on the internet for job applicants, I think people are being trained better and better all the time to be a great applicant but so often it seems like we get people who interview absolutely fantastically but then can't actually do the job (or don't really want to) once we hire them. I often find myself wishing that some of the resources would concentrate less on how to ace interviews and more on how to be a great employee once they're actually hired!

NaeNae55

[QUOTE=cnghr;725301] I often find myself wishing that some of the resources would concentrate less on how to ace interviews and more on how to be a great employee once they're actually hired![/QUOTE]

=D>

davids

We don't use group interviews; but we use "speed interviews" when we have an applicant pool in the hundreds. (We liken this to speed dating.) Rather than cull through 300 applications, we invite all 300 to a 5-10 minute interview. We have used this technique many times now with consistent results. About half of the applicants screen themselves out by not scheduling an interview. Of the remaining 150, approximately 20%-40% will schedule an interview, but not show up. From the remaining 90-100 applicants we easily narrow the pool to 15-25 that are viable candidates. We then review the applications of those 15-25 to end up with 5-10 applicants that are called back for a formal interview. Although it may sound time consumming, it actually saves the time needed to review 300 applications.

sonny

That is really interesting David. .thanks for sharing.