Job interview structures, schedules and criteria
Aids to better job interviewing are now provided by most employers in the UK. They provide selectors with interview structures, question lists and assessment guides, according to this part of IRS’s guide to current selection interviewing. Other sections
On this page:
The use of structured interviews
Question lists and interview guides
Interview schedules and question lists
How interview schedules and question lists are developed
Interview guides and assessment guides
Who develops employers’ interview materials?
Table 1: Employers’ use of interview structures
Table 2: Interview formats: named practice
Table 3: Interview tools used by employers
Table 4: Tools used to develop interview schedules
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Key points
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Job interviewing has come a long way since the days of the amateur psychologist, with their misplaced confidence in having an innate ability to “read” people and make snap judgments about the best candidate.
Most employers are aware that unprofessional attempts at job interviewing can lead to tribunal complaints of unfair discrimination as well as poor appointment decisions. They now commonly ensure that their job interviews benefit from guidance and structure, such as question lists and assessment aids. And they involve HR staff in developing these tools, rather than leaving line managers to cope as best they can with the task.
There remains room for improvement, however. Far more employers prefer flexible forms of guidance and structure to the rigour and formality of the structured interviewing technique, with the notable exception of the public sector.
The use of structured interviews
The term structured interviews is largely self-explanatory. The interviews involve a predefined list of questions, organised in a logical structure. The questions are derived from an analysis of the key demands of the vacancy and are asked of all interviewees.
This approach is now in widespread use, according to our research (see table 1 and table 2).
More than two-thirds (69.2%) of employers use structured interviews when filling some or all of their vacancies. They are most frequently used by state-owned bodies and by organisations with the largest workforces.
Some employers also use semi-structured interview formats. As the term implies, this is a more flexible approach to interviewing. It preserves the essential format of a structured list of questions while allowing interviews some latitude to add to or vary it. Just over one-third (36.3%) of employers use this technique. It is twice as popular in non-state-owned organisations as it is among public bodies. The latter, as we saw in the previous paragraph, prefer the highly structured job interview format.
Why are structured interview formats so common, particularly in the public sector? The one consistent and clear message that emerges from much of the research into selection interviewing is that structured interviews offer superior results in predicting future job performance compared with their unstructured counterparts.
Structured interviews provide interviewers with a framework that they must follow when interviewing each candidate. This helps to improve consistency and objectivity.
If good practice is observed, the questions in a structured interview are derived from an analysis of the selection criteria for the vacancy.
The questions are worded carefully to elicit evidence from the candidate about the degree to which they satisfy the key selection criteria.
The order in which the questions are asked is carefully considered to present a logical, understandable sequence that helps the candidate engage fully with the interview.
However, there are different schools of thought about the extent to which an interview structure should be followed without variation.
Some employers, particularly those in the public sector, consider that many of the benefits of using the technique will be lost if the structure is adapted. This means that each question is asked in exactly the same way, using the same wording. And follow-up questions – where replies are ambiguous or incomplete, for example – are either asked of all candidates or none at all.
The advantage of this approach is that much greater consistency is elicited, in that each interviewee is treated as equally as possible.
The method has two main disadvantages. First, the interview can appear stilted and unnatural. Some interviewers read out the questions almost as a dictation exercise, without any pretence at spontaneity. Candidates can be unnerved, particularly where they do not obtain any feedback to their answers. Questioning can become a polite, low-key form of interrogation.
Second, refusing to sanction the flexible use of follow-up questions means that some candidates could be asked unnecessary, and apparently nonsensical, questions, while others might give unsatisfactory answers that the prescribed probing question might not address. Given that the aim of interviewing should be to obtain as much evidence as possible of candidates’ potential suitability, failure to clarify or amplify answers could be a disservice to both parties.
In some organisations, the interview structure is used with varying degrees of flexibility. Some interviewers may, for example, ask the questions in a way that comes more naturally to them, in terms of their vocabulary and method of expression. And follow-up questioning may not be pre-determined, but used when and where necessary according to the answer that a particular candidate has just given.
The advantages and disadvantages of adopting a more flexible approach to structured interviewing are mirror images of those mentioned immediately above.
A limited amount of flexibility can give a more lively, natural and informal feel to the interview. This can help to put the candidate at their ease and give them the greatest chance of presenting themselves to their best advantage.
However, the consistency that structured interviewing offers over less formal methods can be undermined where interviewers deviate from the script. And the greater objectivity of the technique can be reduced where this deviation has been prompted by interviewers’ conscious or unconscious reactions to particular interviewees.
Question lists and interview guides
Interview structures, as shown in the section above, are used by more than two-thirds of employers. These interview plans are intended to provide a detailed map of the process of interviewing all the candidates for a particular vacancy. Some employers prefer a more flexible approach and use semi-structured interview plans.
There are other ways in which employers can plan their selection interviews. They can develop: an interview schedule or predetermined question list; an interview guide; or an assessment guide.
Interview schedules and question lists
The compilation of interview schedules or question lists represents the method of choice of most employers in terms of improving the consistency and objectivity of their interviews.
More than nine in 10 (91.1%) employers use either interview schedules or lists of questions in their job interviewing processes (see table 3).
Such methods are almost universally practised, and are preferred over the more rigorous and inflexible technique of structured interviewing.
How interview schedules and question lists are developed
Almost all employers follow good practice and use a vacancy’s job description and specification to develop their interview schedules and question lists (see table 4).
Increasingly, organisations are using competency frameworks to develop interview schedules and question lists, particularly in the private sector. More than half (53.7%) of employers are using competencies for these purposes.
It is important to keep the following points in mind when designing interview schedules and question lists:
Interview guides and assessment guides
More than one-third of employers provide supplementary information for their selectors to help them conduct their job interviews objectively and fairly (see table 3).
More than four in 10 (44.4%) organisations issue interview guides to their selectors. And almost four in 10 (37.8%) produce assessment guides.
Neither form of guidance is as popular among state-owned bodies as it is in private sector organisations. This is because public sector employers are much more likely to require the use of formal structured interviewing (see table 1) than the private sector.
Who develops employers’ interview materials?
Most employers provide their selectors with guidance to help them conduct job interviewing fairly and effectively. As shown in the sections above, this guidance includes lists of questions, interview guides and formal interview structures.
Such guidance is rarely developed by line managers on their own, according to our research. This is the case in only 5.2% of organisations.
Instead, the most common practice involves the collaboration of HR staff and line managers in producing these materials. In two-thirds (67.1%) of employers, a member of the HR team works with the line manager responsible for the vacancy concerned to develop the materials that will be used in the selection interviews.
However, a significant minority of employers – more than one in four (27.7%) – gives HR sole responsibility for this task and does not involve the relevant line manager.
This article was written by Noelle Murphy, researcher/writer, Employment Review.
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Table 1: Employers’ use of interview structures |
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Structured interviews |
Semi-structured interviews |
All employers |
69.2% |
36.3% |
BROAD ECONOMIC SECTOR |
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Private sector services |
67.5% |
40% |
Manufacturing and production |
61% |
48% |
Public sector |
78% |
20% |
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES |
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1–249 |
58% |
44% |
250–999 |
71% |
33% |
1,000+ |
77% |
33% |
% of employers. Decimal places are shown for samples of at least 100 organisations. n = 234. Source: IRS. |
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Table 3: Interview tools used by employers |
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Interview schedule/predefined question list |
Interview guide |
Assessment guide |
Other |
All employers |
91.1% |
44.4% |
37.8% |
4.4% |
BROAD ECONOMIC SECTOR |
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Private sector services |
90.4% |
48.2% |
41.2% |
4.4% |
Manufacturing and production |
87% |
48% |
44% |
2% |
Public sector |
95% |
35% |
27% |
6% |
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES |
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1–249 |
84% |
42% |
37% |
5% |
250–999 |
96% |
33% |
36% |
5% |
1,000+ |
93% |
54% |
39% |
3% |
% of employers. Decimal places are shown for samples of at least 100 organisations. n = 225. Source: IRS. |
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Table 4: Tools used to develop interview schedules |
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Job description |
Person specification |
Competency framework |
Other |
None |
All employers |
93.1% |
84.8% |
53.7% |
4.8% |
2.6% |
BROAD ECONOMIC SECTOR |
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Private sector services |
95.7% |
82.6% |
59.1% |
0.9% |
4.3% |
Manufacturing and production |
92% |
78% |
55% |
8% |
2% |
Public sector |
89% |
94% |
43% |
9% |
– |
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES |
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1–249 |
94% |
88% |
47% |
– |
3% |
250–999 |
90% |
82% |
55% |
4% |
5% |
1,000+ |
94% |
84% |
56% |
8% |
– |
% of employers. Decimal places are shown for samples of at least 100 organisations. n = 225. Source: IRS. |
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Other sections Job interviewing: an overview of IRS's research. The IRS guide to current practice in selection interviewing is based on feedback from more than 230 employers. This part of the guide provides an overview of its findings, and explains its research methods. Interviewers’ roles, responsibilities and training. This part of the IRS guide focuses on the key players in job interviews and the typical number present at each interview. It also examines the training in interviewing skills that employers provide. Question styles and formats of job interviewing. This part of the IRS guide finds that telephone interviews are now used by many employers. It also shows that organisations use a battery of question styles and techniques when interviewing candidates, often within the same interview. Job interview scoring systems and record-keeping. This final part of the IRS guide to selection interviewing practices covers employers’ use of scoring systems, their record-keeping policies and their experience of access requests from candidates who want to see their interview notes. |
