An individual interview is a one-on-one meeting between a job candidate and a hiring manager or another employee who will be working with the new hire. An individual interview is shorter than a group interview, lasts about 30 minutes, and doesn’t have any other people in it. An individual interview has several advantages over a group interview. Individual interviews are more personal and allow the candidate to have an extended opportunity to sell themselves and answer questions in depth. Whereas with group interviews, many candidates struggle to stand out or even get their point across because of the noise from everyone speaking at once. In addition, individual interviews are easier to schedule and cost less than bringing several people together for an afternoon or evening of group interviews. Read on to learn about some of the other benefits of individual interviews.
It’s easier to get to know the candidate better #
The best way to hire the right person is to know exactly what you want and to make sure the person you hire has those skills. In group interviews, hiring managers often find it difficult to dig into each candidate’s skills and experience in-depth because there are so many people to talk to and only so much time to cover all of their questions. In an individual interview, you have all the time you need to get to know the candidate and get specific feedback on the exact skills and experience that person has. With an individual interview, you can ask the candidate about his previous work experiences and get specific information about what he does and how he does it. You can also ask him what he likes about his current job and what he wants out of his next job. This kind of information is hard to come by in a group interview format.
It’s more efficient and cost effective #
Group interviews can be difficult and costly to organise, especially when you’re hiring a large number of people. By scheduling individual interviews, you can narrow down your candidate pool quickly and efficiently. You can also use the interviews to whittle your candidate pool down to a manageable size and find the people who you really want to hire. If you’re hiring for a role where there will be a large number of people coming in for interviews, you may have to schedule interviews over a several-month period. With an individual interview, you can schedule them as quickly as possible and be able to start hiring as soon as the interviews are done. This makes the process more efficient and cost effective.
It gives hiring managers more flexibility in whom they hire #
With a group interview, you have to hire everyone who is in the room. This can limit your hiring flexibility, especially if you have a really long group interview and find that you don’t like any of the candidates. With an individual interview, you only have to hire the person in the room with you. This gives you more flexibility and allows you to hire the candidates you want, even if they aren’t the best in the group. It also allows you to narrow down your candidate pool to people you really want to hire and find candidates you might have missed in a group interview.
A bad interview doesn’t mean you have to reject everyone #
In a group interview, if there are 10 people in the room and only two people are really great, you might have to hire all 10 people because of the way group interviews work. If there are only two or three people you like in an individual interview, you can reject everyone else. This allows you to be more selective about who you hire and gives you more flexibility in whom you hire. A bad interview doesn’t mean you have to reject everyone, but it does give you more options and more control over your hiring process.
Individual interviews are easier to evaluate #
Group interviews are subjective and it can be hard to evaluate who is the best candidate. With individual interviews, you have concrete information — the answers the candidates give to your questions — that you can use to evaluate who is the best person for the job. Group interviews are also highly dependent on who is in the room. You can’t control who shows up to the interview, so you might end up with a group of people that doesn’t accurately represent the kind of people you’re looking to hire. Individual interviews let you control who is in the room and give you concrete information that you can use to make your decision.
Conclusion #
Most people are more comfortable in an individual interview setting than they are in a group interview setting. It’s also easier for interviewers to get to know the candidate better when there aren’t other people in the room to distract them. Individual interviews can be more efficient and cost effective as well. With these advantages, it’s no wonder that individual interviews are now the preferred method for hiring new employees.
