11 Types of Interviews

Interview and Its Types

An interview is a procedure designed to obtain information from a person through oral responses to oral inquiries.

An interview is a face-to-face conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee, where the interviewer seeks replies from the interviewee for choosing a potential employee.

It serves as the primary means to collect additional information on an applicant and the basis for assessing an applicant’s job-related knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Types of Interview

1. Unstructured (Non-directive) Interview

In unstructured interviews, there is generally no set format to follow so that the interview can take various directions. The lack of structure allows the interviewer to ask follow-up questions and pursue points of interest as they develop.

An unstructured interview is an interview where probing, open-ended questions are asked. It involves a procedure where different questions may be asked to different applicants.

2.   Structured (Directive) Interview

In structured interviews, the interviewer lists the questions and acceptable responses in advance and may even rate and score possible answers for appropriateness.

An interview consisting of a series of job-related questions asked consistently of each applicant for a particular job is known as a structured interview.

A structured interview typically contains four types of questions.

• Situational questions: Pose a hypothetical job situation to determine what the applicant would do.
• Job knowledge questions: Probe the applicant’s job-related knowledge.
• Job-sample simulation questions: Involve situations where an applicant may be required to perform a sample task from the job.
• Worker requirements questions: Seek to determine the applicant’s willingness to conform to the job requirements.

3.   Situational Interview

In a situational interview, you ask the candidate what his or her behavior would be in a given situation.

Candidates are interviewed about what actions they would take in various job-related situations. Situational interviews ask interviewees to describe how they would react to a hypothetical situation today or tomorrow.

4.   Behavioral Interview

In a behavioral interview, you ask applicants to describe how they reacted to actual situations in the past.

Candidates are asked what actions they have taken in prior job situations similar to situations they may encounter on the job. The interviewers are then scored using a scoring guide constructed by job experts.

This structured interview uses questions designed to probe the candidate’s past behavior in specific situations.

5.   Job-related Interview

In a job-related interview, the interviewer asks applicants questions about relevant past experiences.

It is a series of job-related questions that focus on relevant past job-related behaviors. The questions here don’t revolve around hypothetical or actual situations scenarios.

Instead, the interviewer asks job-related questions such as, “Which courses did you like best in business school?”

6. Stress Interview

In a stress interview, the interviewer seeks to make the applicant uncomfortable with occasionally rude questions.

The aim is supposedly to spot sensitive applicants and those with low or high-stress tolerance.

Stress interviews may help unearth hypersensitive applicants who might overreact to mild criticism with anger and abuse.

It intentionally creates anxiety to determine how an applicant will react to stress on the job.

7.   Panel Interview (Board Interview)

A panel interview, also known as a board interview, is conducted by a team of interviewers who interview each candidate and then combine their ratings into a final score.

Here one candidate is interviewed by several representatives of the firm. This technique entails the job candidate giving oral responses to job-related questions asked by a panel of interviewers.

8. One-On-One Interview

In a one-on-one interview, one interviewer meets one candidate. In a typical employment interview, the applicant meets one-on-one with an interviewer.

As the interview may be a highly emotional occasion for the applicant, meeting alone with the interviewer is often less threatening.

9. Mass Interview (Group Interview)

The mass/group interview is a relatively new technique in the west and is almost unknown. It is a procedure for the discovery of leadership.

Several job applicants are placed in a leaderless discussion, and interviewers sit in the background to observe and evaluate the performance of the candidates.

In a mass/group interview, the panel interviews several candidates simultaneously. The panel poses a problem and then watches to see which candidate takes the lead in formulating an answer.

10.             Phone Interview

Employers do some interviews entirely by These can be more accurate than face-to-face interviews for judging an applicant’s conscientiousness, intelligence, and interpersonal skills.

Neither party needs to worry about appearance or handshakes, so each can focus on substantive answers.

11.             Online Interview

Since the attack of Corona virus, online interview have become very common. The interviewer/ interviewers remain in their offices and interview a candidate about his skills abilities and interests. Their questions are structured in such a way that the interviewee is judged whether he is eligible or not.