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COMMOM ERRORS MADE BY INTERVIEWERS

In interviews, there are some errors which are made by interviewers during an interview unintentionally. An error is a wrong judgment of a situation, object, or a person. This happens either because the situation / object / person is judged on the basis of partial information or misperception of information.

In either case, the judgment tends to be wrong. This happens during job interview too. After all, interviewers are also human beings and they are affected by their own personality features and other behavioral factors like attitudes, values, emotions, etc. Some common errors are likely to be made by interviewers are: first impression, halo effect, and stereotyping.

If you can take adequate precautions during interview process, you may become more effective. We will discuss the errors in the next lines.

Let us have a discussion about these three errors:

1. FIRST IMPRESSION

There is a famous saying about interview: “in an interview, interviewers form their opinions about the interviewee in first few minutes. Rest of the time is used to reinforce those opinions.” This happens because interviewers tend to evaluate a candidate on the basis of first impression given by him. If this first impression is favorable, he is likely to be judged favorably by the interviewers. If it is unfavorable, he is likely to be judged unfavorably. First impression of a candidate before a panel of interviewers depends on several factors like the way he is dressed, the manner he walks from the door to the seating place, the way he greets The interviewers, the type of confidence he shows through his body language, the way he answers the opening question like tell ‘tell us something about yourself, and subsequent few questions. During the first few minutes, the interviewers form opinions about the candidate, and very often, these opinions hold good during the entire interview process unless there are very strong contradictory indications against the first impression. A famous saying ‘first impression is the last impression’ holds good in most of the cases.

2. HALO EFFECT

Halo effect takes place when the interviewers judge all the qualities of a candidate based on the observation of a few qualities only. Since a candidate has so many qualities and the interviewers do not have enough time at their disposal, they probe only a limited number of qualities of the candidate. Based on this probing, they form the opinions about the candidate’s all qualities and rate him accordingly. If the candidate is able to draw the attention of the interviewers towards his outstanding qualities, he is likely to be more successful than those who fail to do so. Very often, the interviewers ask the candidates: ‘tell us about your strengths and weaknesses.’ If this opportunity can be grabbed properly, a candidate can give the list of his limited number of outstanding qualities which can be probed by the interviewers. Giving a long list of strengths by the candidate may be injurious to himself as he is likely to be exposed unnecessarily.

3. STEREOTYPING:

Stereotyping occurs when a person is perceived by others on the basis of characteristics of the group to which he belongs, rather than his personal characteristics. In the case of an interview, the interviewers may take positive or negative stand about a candidate based on his schooling pattern and the status of the educational institution from where he has completed his highest degree, place of origin, family background, etc. For example, if a candidate has obtained his degree from a premier academic institution, he is likely to have more favorable opinions of the interviewers as compared to those who have obtained degree from lowly-placed institutions. This type of stereotyping can be negated by a candidate by showing much higher performance in the interview. It is not necessary that the interviewers commit errors due to stereotyping in all cases though the possibility of occurrence of such an error cannot ruled out entirely.

After going through the interview basics, you may be in a better position to prepare yourself suitably for the interview. In this preparation process, the first step is to know the types of question that are likely to be asked by the interviewers.

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