The Team Interview: It's More Than a Gut Feeling

Many companies these days have chosen to do team or panel interviewing. This type of interview involves a group of co-workers who interview the applicant as a team. This allows for several different opinions on a candidate and can result in a better interview and thus a better hire. Because team interviews involve multiple people, organization is even more key than in one-on-one interviews.

In team interviews as in one-on-one interviews preparation is the key. The job description and resume of the candidate need to be reviewed carefully by each member of the panel. Once this is completed a list of interview questions can be written. All members of the team should be well-versed in behavioral interviewing and the questions should be written in behavioral interviewing format. Behavior-based questions are questions designed to uncover specific behaviors and situations exhibited in the past. Through these behaviors an interviewer can predict how a candidate will react in future situations. An example of this type of question is "Tell me how you handled a specific situation when you had a disappointed customer and what you did about it?"
 

Each member of the team should complete a list of questions. The team should then meet and determine which questions should be asked, the order in which they should be asked and by whom they should be asked. It is vitally important that this is well organized and everyone knows their role. The interview plan should then be distributed to the group so that everyone is prepared and ready to go when it's their turn. This organization will also give your candidate a positive view of your company.

Every interviewer on the panel should be provided with an evaluation sheet. They sheet should be the same for everyone and should provide plenty of room to rate the candidate. All interviewers should take copious notes to ensure that they remember all of the answers clearly. Without these notes, it is easy to forget exactly what the candidate's responses were. Note taking is imperative to have an effective interview. It is vitally important that the evaluation sheet is filled out prior to any discussion with other members of the panel. This will keep each interviewer's evaluation as unbiased as possible. Lastly, the evaluations should be distributed among the group and the team should meet to discuss the candidate.

Having a panel of evaluations will provide another barrier against biases and preconceptions that harm the interviewing process. A panel should provide the most unbiased review possible. Although team interviews involve groups of people and thus are more complicated, they provide the most unbiased review possible. All organizations should consider this interview process whenever feasible.

Charlie Bentson King is a writer and producer of training videos for TrainingABC. TrainingABC is a distributor of behavioral interviewing video and DVD programs such as More Than a Gut Feeling.