Interviewer and Applicant Questioning Behavior in Employment Interviews

Abstract

Although questions represent one of the primary means of information exchange in the employment interview, empirical research exploring interview questioning has been an infrequent object of review and interpretation. This article attempts to alleviate this situation by providing a cross-disciplinary review and analysis of research related to interviewer and applicant questioning processes in the employment interview. Toward this end, our literature analysis is organized into three primary sections: (a) constraints and antecedent factors associated with asking questions in the interview; (b) characteristics of interview questions; and (c) the consequences or outcomes of questioning. Within each of these sections findings pertaining to interviewer and applicant question usage are described and critiqued. Subsequently, we discuss pragmatic implications for interview practice that can be extrapolated from our analysis of the literature. Finally, in the last section we present a number of conclusions concerning the “state of the art” of research exploring questioning in the employment interview, and we suggest directions for future research in the area.

Interpersonal communication competence in context: Assessing performance in the selection interview

“…Put differently, the traits necessary for competent interpersonal interaction may not translate to the interview setting because the selection interview is more formal, structured, and purposeful than most (Jablin & Miller, 1990). This explanation implies that dispositional approaches to competence may be appropriate for some interpersonal contexts, but not the formal interview situation.…”

Toward a research agenda for the second employment interview

“…Investigations of interaction sequences provide insight into participants' control of the interview. Interviewer and interviewee information exchanges can be situated in on-going streams of interaction where a verbal act (i.e., a question, an answer, or a statement) of one person is coupled with a verbal act of a second person in an interact (Jablin & Miller, 1990). When an interact (questionanswer) is then coupled with another verbal act (question, answer, or statement) by the first person, the sequence forms a double-interact.…”

“…In the screening interview, most interviewers use meta-talk forms (conversational tactics) such as directing, agendizing, remediating, and requesting to maintain a position of power so that applicants spend most of the interview passively answering questions (Jablin & Miller, 1990). For example, Axtmann and Jablin (1986) report that interviewers typically follow applicant answers to questions with a statement (37% of the time) or a question (about 44% of the time), in effect holding the floor.…”

The Critical Contact: A Study of Recruiter Verbal Behavior During Campus Interviews

“…205 Despite the consistency of these findings, existing research is limited because most of these studies relied upon analog situations or postinterview surveys to assess recruiter behavior. A handful of content analyses of actual in-vivo recruiter behaviors have been conducted (e.g., Dougherty et al, 1994;Jablin & Miller, 1990;McComb & Jablin, 1984;Tullar, 1989a, b). However, Dougherty used only three interviewers, and Tullar's data were obtained from 20 interviewers attending an interview training course.…”