When the job interview is mentioned and talked, we all get goosebumps at first. We generally get a little nervous and then try to visualise those moments in our minds. 😊 Let’s assume that everyone who is in the working life may have had an interview experience at least once. In this context, we have all experienced those nervous feelings and excitement mixed with confusion at least once. Isn’t it? 😊 As writer team, we had presented and provided you 10 classic questions asked in job interviews and their potential answers before. If you haven’t read that article, we recommend that you read those articles first before reading our interview types. Okay, let’s say you read it and you came again.
It is very obvious that in order to prepare for the interview, we must first know the interview types and prepare ourselves according to correct the type of interview we will enter. In addition, as you will see in search engines, we provide you with the most up-to-date information while the articles on interview types are old and generally out of date.
There are many interview types such as one-on-one interviews, panel interviews, structured interviews, unstructured interviews and group interviews and naturally, they all have different focus and way of doing it. In each job interview, an appropriate interview type is selected according to the questions on the basis of the job interview and the number of candidates.
What are the Interview Types?
- a-Structured One-on-One Interview
- b-Group Interview
- c- Panel Interview
- d- Unstructured One-on-One Interview
- e- Stress Interview
- f- Assessment Centre Activities
a- In structured one-on-one interviews, the control of the interviewer is strong and dominant. Because in this type of one-on-one interview, the interviewer asks all the candidates a set of pre-prepared same questions in a certain order based on the candidates’ resume and/or characteristics. Since these candidate-centred questions such as previous jobs, personal characteristics or experience of the candidate are asked equally to all candidates, it is an easier type of interview for the interviewer.
b- In a group interview, one or more human resources professionals, observing the candidates from the corners of the interview room, ask the group to discuss a given issue and usually come to a solution. This type of interview in which the diction, speaking styles, attitudes, leadership skills and social intelligence of the candidates are taken into account, is usually included as a part of the assessment centre activities that we will talk about below. There have been people in the past who didn’t make their teammates talk due to their excess desire to highlight their leadership qualities in group interviews. We recommend that you pay attention to the fine line between talking too much and talking less here during the interview.
c- A panel interview is a type of job interview that is often confused with a group interview. While many candidates are discussing among themselves in a group interview, in a panel interview, there is more than one interviewer or manager in front of a candidate. This is the most important difference. The panel interview is one of the most challenging interview types as the candidate encounters many managers at the same time and mostly used in recruitment in the banking sector.
Unstructured Interviews!
d- In the unstructured one-on-one interview, unlike the structured one-on-one interview, there are no predetermined questions in a list. In this job interview type, the job interview continues in a format where the candidate is more comfortable and can talk about himself/herself on different topics. At this point, it should be noted that; In order not to deviate from the subject of the interview, the human resources specialist who conducts the interview should be experienced and controlled. Since more spontaneous questions will come to the candidate, it will be healthier for the candidate to talk about the topics that he has knowledge and experience.
e- Stress interview is a type of interview that has not been used much recently and is based on measuring the patience of the candidate. Questions that challenge the patience of the candidate to understand how to behave in tense and stressful situations may be asked by the interviewer. In addition, the interviewer can push the candidate to the tension knowingly and willingly, you need to be careful in this kind of job interviews 😊
f- Assessment Center Activities are a type of interview that has become very popular in recent years. These Assessment center activities which include activities such as dealing with problematic employee (role play), case studies, group interviews and job prioritization are generally not used in recruitment. Such assessment center activities are a type of interview that helps to measure the readiness of candidates who are in transition to middle or senior management on their career path. In these activities, information is usually given to the candidate in text beforehand, and he is expected to read this text in a limited time and to give the highest performance by preparing for the role play or interview that will be held soon.
What is Interviewer?
While the types of interviews remain mostly the same in 2024, as we have stated before, the importance of assessment center activities is gradually increasing as there are case studies, role plays and applications.
Whether it is a group interview or a one-on-one interview, the interviewer is an employer or a human resources specialist in more corporate companies. Since the interviewer, who has probably interviewed hundreds of candidates like you, will have enough experience, you should behave like yourself as much as possible, not the person you “want to be” or “want to show” to him. Since the interviewer, who is a boss, employer or human resources specialist, will be a person like you, you can understand which features you need to highlight by showing some empathy and observation. (Please click here for job interview tips and click here to learn 10 questions to ask in a job interview :))
Ultimately, regardless of the type of interview, it is very obvious that candidates who are always self-confident, emphasizing their smooth diction with a full voice and fulfilling what is asked of them with their analytical thinking skills will come one step ahead in the recruitment processes. On the other hand, it is as important to know the types of interviews as it is to gather information about the institution you are applying to and to do research on the corporate culture. Even if the answer to each question is the same, please do not forget that you can add comments to some answers according to corporate culture differences.
