An interview is believed to be an important part of the selection process by most of the employers. Researchers have even shown that interview is included in 90% of the selection process that takes place worldwide.
Employers rely on the interview because it has various advantages. However, the interview is not advantageous always. It also has various limitations. Here you can find both the strengths and the limitations of interview, described briefly.
Strengths of Interview
1. Selection of correct candidate
Hiring the right candidate with right qualifications and skills is important for any company to avoid any kinds of problems in the future. Whether the problem is related to the company’s productivity or employees discipline, it can be prevented timely by selecting the right personnel.
Viewing from a different perspective, not all people who apply for the job are genuine. Some people might just submit a fake resume or C.V. with incorrect information. In such case, it will be a blunder if the company hires such people. The interview helps the interviewer in knowing the candidate personally, hence making them able to recognize who the candidate really is.
2. Collection of information
An interview is helpful in collecting a lot of information (primary to comprehensive) about the candidate.
General information like name, address, academic qualifications, etc. can be grabbed from a C.V. as well. But information like nature, attitude, personality, opinion, feelings, etc. can be gained only through an interview.
The interview helps to conduct an in-depth analysis of the candidate to conclude whether the candidate is really suitable for the company or not.
3. Easy correction of speech
An interview is basically held in the physical presence of the interviewer and the interviewee. In cases, when any of the parties is not physically accessible, other approaches to live conversation are adopted. Whatever may be the approach, interview being a live conversation, it allows the mistakes and the misunderstandings to be easily revised.
4. Initiation of relationship
Interviews are generally set up to extract information about the candidates. However, it helps the candidates to extract a lot of information about the company as well.
Not all candidates are selected by the interviewers (employers). But, those who get selected can easily develop a good relationship with the company if they had a good interview during the selection process.
5. Time and cost-effective
There are high chances of wrong personnel being recruited in the company in absence of interview during recruitment. Such recruitment is useless and the company will need to begin the process from the beginning. Therefore, it is wiser to include an interview in recruitment phase to save time as well as money of the company.
6. Flexible
Interviews can be set up as per the need of the company. Different posts demand different qualifications and skills which can be detected by the help of various methods of interviews.
7. Exchange and increase of knowledge
Interviews being verbal interaction, it allows the interviewer and the interviewee to freely exchange their views and ideas. This helps in broadening knowledge regarding any particular field.
Limitations of Interview
1. No record
Interviews are verbal interactions and there have not been any techniques set up to record these interactions. Lack of record can lead to great confusions because one cannot remember things exactly for a long time.
2. Incomplete process
Yes, an interview is a major tool of the selection process but it is not the final one. It is because interviews do not help in extracting every single detail about the candidate.
For an instance, if the company is in need of a technical employee, say a writer, it should give the candidates written test in order to check how well are their vocabulary and other skills required to create a good piece of work.
3. Incomplete information
An interview is regarded as a reliable technique for collecting information, but it does not help always. Sometimes, due to the negligence of interviewer and interviewee, the company can miss the collection of important information.
For example, when an interviewer is passively conducting the interview, he/she might forget to ask the interviewee even important questions. In the same way, an interviewee might give wrong or irrelevant answers when he/she does not listen to the question attentively.
4. Mentally disturbing
There are various methods of interview, among which methods like behavioral, puzzle and stress interviews are known to put the interviewee under intense pressure condition. Questions asked by the interviewers during such interviews can leave the interviewee mentally disturbed.
5. Effect of interviewer’s personality and mood
The selection of interview questions and the level of scrutiny can depend upon interviewer’s personality and their mood. Interviewers who are easygoing or in good mood can ask questions that are comparatively easier and can even select candidates who are less capable of further consideration. In contrast, strict and more demanding interviewers can reject even qualified candidates.
6. Snap judgment
Interviews are arranged for a specific period of time during which the interviewer tries to collect as much information as possible about the candidate by asking several questions.
The interviewer then judges the entire nature, personality and attitude of the candidate on the only basis of the answers given by the interviewee.
The preference of words of an interviewee can define him/her only to some extent, not completely.
