[MUSIC] So far in these sessions, we have looked at the critical distinction between structured and unstructured interviews. The difference between them, which is so profound that they cannot really be usefully considered as belonging to the same selection. But there are other distinctions and differences between interviews we should think about. The first is between those that involve a single interviewer and those that involve two or more interviewers simultaneously interviewing a candidate, a so-called panel or board interview. The distinction between single interviewer and panel interviewers comes across structured, unstructured distinction. Both structured and unstructured interviews can be panel or single interviewer. Intuitively, the use of a panel of interviewers pooling their impressions and decisions might be expected to reduce biases and increase predictive validity. But the evidence though not entirely clear cut does not tend to support this. Visner and Conshore, for example for found their unstructured panel interviews had significantly higher predictive validity then unstructured individual interviews. But McDaniel on the other hand found no significant differences. However, where these two studies did agree, if the interview was a highly structured one, the validity of the individual interview was at least as high as the panel interview. Given that an individual interview will almost inevitably be less expensive than a panel interview, a single interviewer is the obvious way to go. But many organizations prefer to use a panel interview may often be as much of an natural internal politics as anything else, where certain individuals wanting own, import and control over the selection or the promotions process. But there is no serious evidence that this leads to better decisions. Another way on which interviews can be differentiated involves the occasion of the parties involved. Interviews were traditionally face to face meetings between an interviewer and interviewee, that is no longer necessarily the case. In fact, it has not been the case since the invention of the telephone. History did not unfortunately, record the first case of a telephone interview, but it was probably not too long after the invention and introduction of the technology. Their use has grown enormously, not least because they are cheap and convenient and avoid travelling expenses for either the prospective employer or the candidate. The most common use of telephone interviews has been to narrow down the applicant pool to a more manageable number of suitable candidates who can be called in for a second face to face interview. For the employer, this is cost efficient. Telephone interviews to use for this purpose tend to be structured, with the interviewer working through a list of questions and scoring the candidate's answers as the interview progresses. There's been a lot of research on aspects of telephone job interviews. Susan Strauss and her colleagues found that interviewers evaluated candidates more favorably in telephone interviews than face to face. And this effect was most notable when the candidate was less physically attractive. The lack of non verbal information in a telephone interview, can actually reduce biases. Joanne Sylvester and her colleagues, found that when a candidate gave a personal or internal attribution for an outcome or action. For example, I was able to finish the project ahead of schedule because I have a high capacity to work under pressure. That type of response got a higher rating in a telephone, than in a face to face interview. Sylvester explained this in terms of interviewers paying more attention to information that permits them to differentiate between candidates In the absence of visual clues. In the last couple of decades, the telephone interview has been joined by the webcam interview as a medium for conducting interviews at a distance. In terms of utility, they have much the same advantage of telephone interviews, though at the same time providing some visual clues. Whether these visual clues lead to better decisions is a matter research has not entirely been able to resolve. Research by sears comparing webcam and face to face interviews found that applicants in webcam interviews received lower ratings than those in face to face. But this leaves open the question as to which was actually the most accurate rating. From an employers perspective, the utility of telephone and webcam interviews certainly for an initial narrowing down of an applicant pool when there are so many applicants is clearly very great. Nor does the employer need any specialist knowledge. There are now specialist providers who will provide access to an applicant to a set of standardized questions provided by the prospective employer. The employer is then sent the set of recorded interviews that result from this to make a decision. We are reaching the end of this last section of this very short course, so we need to briefly summarize what we encountered. Perhaps the central lesson we have learned is that interviews are not uniform. Notably there is a very important distinction between unstructured and structured forms, which rate very differently against criteria such as prediction, caused, fairness and range. So given what we have now learned, should an employer ever used an unstructured interview? The answer to that is almost certainly not. Unstructured interviews have poor prediction and are prone to bias and discrimination, as they depend on subjective judgement. True, they are certainly easy to organize and involve very little cost in terms of time and money. But the cost of employing the wrong person far outweighs those savings, that can be a very expensive error. And as we have seen, structured interviews compare very favorably with other selection methods in terms of the important criteria. The predictive power of structured interviews is very close to that of cognitive ability tests and work samples. But at the same time, they result in very little discrimination. In conclusion then, if there are situations where using work samples, assessment centers and cognitive ability tests can be both sensible and advisable, the structured interview should on the evidence be the default selection method for most organizations most of the time. This course has only been out to give you a very brief outline of the issues and the evidence. There is so much more to know and to explore, and I hope this has given you an appetite to take this further. Perhaps, by enrolling in a suitable course, which a number of universities provide including of course, here at. Thank you for your time and interest. [MUSIC]
