Types of Interviews

During an interview you can expect to be asked questions around your educational background, previous work experiences and questions relating to your personal characteristics and goals. But what happens after that? It depends on what interview style your interviewer prefers. Below are some of the more common interview styles used.

The Structured Interview – During a structured interview, you will be presented with a series of questions that have been prepared ahead of time in a predetermined agenda. Generally, when a company is interviewing multiple candidates for the same position this format is used. Quite often, with these interviews, the questions are taken right from the internet.

The Unstructured Interview – This type of interview has no preset agenda. They usually begin with the very popular broad question of “Tell me about yourself.” Remember, your interviewer doesn’t want to know your age, marital status and whether or not you have children. With an unstructured interview, you have more control over the pace of the interview, but it is up to you to demonstrate your knowledge and skills as well as what you’d be able to contribute to the organization.

The Stress Interview – The purpose of a stress interview is to put potential employees into a stressful and difficult situation you can be evaluated on how you would react. This enables your potential employer to get a sense of your conflict management style as well as your ability to deal with the unknown. Often, if you are interviewing for a position that involves a lot of customer facing, this type of interview is used. It is meant to be confrontational - so be prepared.

The Behavioral Interview – The behavioral interview is used to predict how much value you would add to the company. The interviewer has a list of job-related experiences, behaviors, knowledge and skills that are desired in a person for a particular position. During an interview the interviewer asks you questions that require you to provide specific examples that hopefully demonstrate the pre-identified skills and abilities their looking for.

Interviewing is a skill, it takes time to learn and master. Hopefully, being familiar with the different interviewing styles will ensure that you are prepared for your interview and get through the interview with confidence.