Spring 2014 OBHR 645
Staffing System
Professor：Mike Campion

Review of a Selection Procedure
Structured Interview

literature review：
Structured interview is a highly standardized and job related method of assessment, including two principal types: situational interview and experience based interview (Heneman III, H. G., Judge, T. A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D.). Situational interviews test applicant’s ability to make solution to a problematic situation that he or she would face in the future work. Experience-based interviews, on the other hand, assess applicant’s past behaviors that are linked to the prospective job. Structured interview is considered to have high validity, low to medium adverse impact, medium candidate reactions, and low administrative ease.
Structured interviews needs careful construct. It is actually a selection test, which includes oral, written, and physical sections (Pursell, E. D., Campion, M. A., & Gaylord). Hamdani said in his research that he thinks interview is primarily a social interaction process (Hamdani). The process includes: job analysis; evaluating the job duty information; development of interview questions; development of sample answers; and interview committee and implementation. This process has several characteristics. The interview questions could include situational questions, job knowledge question, job sample questions and worker requirements questions. These questions must be job-related and based on job duties and requirements that are critical to job performance. Different types of interview questions tap different constructs according to the particular situation. However, Hamdani has consensus on the specific constructs that are tapped by the different interview types (Hamdani).
Validity of structured interview is relatively high. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior (Heneman III, H. G., Judge, T. A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D.). Applicants who are have success past job experience will tend to have better performance in the prospective job. What’s more, the methods that we used to structure the interview are highly standardized, which makes it more valid (Campion & Brown). Among those structured interview questions, research shows that questions focus on past behavior have higher validity than the future-oriented ones (Campion, M. A., Campion, J. E., & Hudson, J.). According to the research, many people think that structured interview is more valid than uninstructed interview not only because of the different reliability, but also in significantly because of its better procedures for identify and measure job requirements (Schmidt, F. L., & Zimmerman, R. D.). An other interesting research finds out that during an structured interview, interviewer’s validity of judgments could be different depends on whether the information is aural cues or visual cues and visual cues play a potentially important role in estimates of interview validity (Motowidlo, S. J., & Burnett, J. R. ). It says: “if research shows that true score variance in relevant traits underlie both sets of judgments, visual cues have the potential to enhance interview validity (Motowidlo, S. J., & Burnett, J. R.).” However, one thing that we cannot ignore in structured interview is faking. “Faking is an intentional distortion or a falsification of responses on measures in order to create a specific impression or provide the best answer” (Comrey & Backer, 1975). Interviewer fake because they want to get better results, get treated unfairly in job interviews before, or think there is low probability to be caught (Levashina, J., & Campion, M. A.). Faking will definitely effect the result of interview. In order to avoid faking, we can tell them faking is not acceptable and they won’t be hired if they are caught faking, videotape the interview process to give them more pressure, or repeating the same question. Also, research shows that use special scales can also help