Critically evaluate the use of interviews in HRM either generally or for a specific HR practice. Illustrate your answer with reference to your own experience of interviewing and, or being interviewed.

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Critically evaluate the use of interviews in HRM either generally or for a specific HR practice. Illustrate your answer with reference to your own experience of interviewing and, or being interviewed.

Interviews are seen as a social process as an exercise in personal perception involving judgements of what is seen and heard with information being exchanged and evaluated until decisions are reached. Interviewing can be used for a variety of HR functions including research interviews, media interviews and appraisal interviews, depending on the type of interview the rules differ in specificity and formality. However in this essay I am going to focus on selection interviews looking at one to one formal interviews. Interviews are meant to be the best selection methods with many advantages, however during this essay I am going to focus on the numerous disadvantages. When looking at disadvantages of interviews it is important to look at the disadvantages for both the interviewer and interviewee. It is for this reason I am going to split the essay into two parts the disadvantages of the interviewer or company and interviewee, as these are the two main parties involved in interviewing. When writing this essay I will not only look at the theory behind the drawbacks of selection interviews but will also try to look at my own experiences of being interviewed and identify how I perceived the interview to be ineffective and its problems.

One of the problems of interviewing for the company and the interviewer is that it can be time-consuming and costly. If you think the employer may interview hundred people for just five positions consisting of one to four interviews lasting from ten minutes to five hours. This means that the selection process can take many days which is costly. The company has to interview a lot of people as many who arrive will not be suitable for the job either due to personality, skills or not enough experience. They also have some people who turn up to the interview with no intention of working for the company, they go either to improve their interview skills or to try and boost their ego’s by getting offered the job

Perhaps the biggest problem for the interviewer is that of deception both intentional and accidental. Fletcher (1992) conducted research which highlighted a discrepancy between interviewer expectations of honesty and strident behaviour. Almost all interviewers 97 % regarded honesty in interviews as essential but they would be disappointed as 20 % of students questioned said they were seldom or never completely honest.

 Unintentional deception is a common occurrence in interviews as verbal communication contains inherent faults through imperceptions and misinterpretations of what the candidate is trying to say or how it comes across. Sometimes candidates do reply incorrectly as questions may be overlooked with technical jargon which the candidate may misunderstand. The interviewer can also lead the candidate to deception by asking hypothetical questions that are beyond the candidate’s experience. Candidates may lead to further accidental deception by producing optimistic answers; this could be by overestimating their ability or aptitude for undertaking particular work i.e. learning new skills. However in my experience why are you going to lessen your chances of getting a job by telling the interviewer you are not going to do a good job at a job you haven’t done before? When I was being interviewed for a part time job at a bar with no experienced when asked do I think I would be able to carry out the jobs well my obvious answer was that I would do the job well. Why would I diminish my chances when I did genuinely believe I would do these jobs well? When I received the job I did carry out all of my jobs well, however not all those who said they’d be able to do the job well, actually could do it well and this is why optimistic answers pose a threat to the employers.

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There is also the problem of intentional deception which is just plain dishonesty. This dishonesty can take the partial and complete fabrication of facts such as educational qualifications, skills, employment history, salary and experience may be undertaken to match the candidate with the ideal employee. At the interview stage many candidates have to carry on going giving false information to sustain incorrect, supplied in a CV or application form. Weiss and Davis (1960) found out one fifth of candidates gave misleading replies. Bringing this in with my own experience I am currently applying for a placement with a firm ...

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