What is Interview? Discuss the objectives or purposes of an interview.
Answer: An interview is a face to face conversation. It is a test of both the communicants and parties engaged in the interviews. According to Gibson and Hanna “An interview is a face to face interpersonal event in which at least one person has planned to achieve a specific goal.
From the above discussion we can say that, interview is a face to face meeting between the interviewer and the interviewee where the interviewer asks some questions to the interviewee to test his intelligence, knowledge and personality.
Objectives or purposes of Interview.
An interview is a face to face conversation. It is a test of both the communicants and parties engaged in the interviews. It is used for different reasons. The purposes of interview are discussed below:
Exchange of information: With the help of interview information can be exchanged between interviewer and interviewee.
- Persuading: Another important purpose of interview is to persuade the interviewee to provide particular answers of the questions to be asked.
- Solving problems: Interview provides solution to a specific problem with the help of interviewer and interviewee discussion.
- Counseling: providing counseling to the mentally distressed or stressed employee is an important objective of interview.
- Advising: Interviewer provides necessary advice to the interviewee or concerned people.
- Increasing understanding: Interview helps to increase the understanding of the parties in different areas due to exchange their views, news and opinions.
- Monitoring performance: Interview helps to monitoring performance the interviewee or concerned people.
- Measuring stress: Measuring employee stress is an important purpose of interview. In stress interview the interviewee is put into difficulties in order to test his reaction to stress situations.
- Finding the best candidate: The objective of employment interview is to find out the best candidate from the potential ones. In such interview candidates are asked different questions for testing their qualities.
From the above discussion we can say that, an interview does not take place just to ask some questions to the interviewee rather it serves some important purposes.
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How to conduct an interview effectively?
Conducting the interview is not so easy. The interviewee should create a friendly environment for the interviewee and the same time he is to ensure the selection of competent candidate. A few guidelines are given below on how to conduct an effective interview.
- Welcoming the interviewee: The interviewer should welcome the interviewee exactly in the same way as a friend is welcome while visiting his office or home.
- Contents of the interview: After taking the candidate feel easy and nervous free, the interviewer should start talking to him on the subjects he wants to know about.
- According the Theodore Hariton the under mentioned things may be included:
= The candidate’s technical ability.
= Drive and aspirations
= Character
= financial stability
= Previous experience
= Any other relevant question.
- Showing interest: When the candidate is providing information, you are asking for, you must show your keen interest in what he is telling. If you think that the candidate is suitable and you might offer him job, give him all the details about your company and the job.
- Parting: This last stage of an interview is parting. It is as important as welcoming. In this concluding part of interview, you should thank the candidate for coming for the interview and tell him when and how he will be informed about the outcome of the interview.
From the above discussion we can say that; conducting an interview is an important task. In fact the success of an interview largely depends on how it is conducted, not how it is faced by the interviewees.
