Question

Gleason & Co. is a mid-sized construction company located in London, Ontario. Four weeks ago, the company was awarded a $2,000,000 federal government contract to renovate a secondary school. Gleason & Co. currently employs 195 employees already working to maximum capacity, so Management has decided to create a department that will be solely responsible for the federal government contract. This will mean a company expansion with 30 new employees joining the organization. You have been given the task of leading the hiring team for the new division.   

There have been many changes in the field of HR since the company last expanded, and Management has expressed concerns that some of the people assigned to your team are not as knowledgeable about Recruitment and Selection as they should be. Management has requested that you begin by educating your team members in the most up-to-date Recruitment and Selection methods.

1. You have decided to use a Situational Interview (SI) format in interviewing the job applicants.

a) Explain the nature and importance of a SI to your team.

b) One of the company’s core competencies is “Teamwork”. Develop a SI question (including a dilemma) that could be used in an interview to test for this competency.

c) Develop a scoring guide that could be used to score the above SI question.

2. Traditionally, Gleason & Co. used an unstructured interview approach, combined with pure judgmental decision making. You want your team to use structured interviews. Develop a short (max. one page) communication addressed to the managers and explain to them the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of their past approach and the structured approach. Focus on a few (3-4) most important components of structured interviews and explain in detail how they contribute to the employment interview structure.

Answer 1

1.a) Situational Interview is a type of interview in which the employee asked the candidate to respond to a particular situation, that they may have to face at work. This type of skill is used to judge the analytical strength and the capability of handling difficult and unpredictable situations by the employees. Sometimes, the employer also asked about the past experiences of the candidates and decide on their behavioral approach as well as their future approach towards the work. For my team, the situational interview will be very important because firstly, it is a construction company and requires fieldwork. There are many types of situation, that an employee may have to face while working in the field rather than in the office. Secondly, this project will be a renovation project and so it will require somewhat creativity, and that can be analyzed by a situational interview.  

b) The question that could be used to check the teamwork competency is -

Suppose that your team leader assigns a task to each one of you and you have completed your part. But one of your teammates has not been able to complete his share of the job. If you complete his part of the job also, your manger may recommend you for a promotion and your teammate may lose his job. You are capable of doing his part of the job also. What will you do? Will you tell your manager that you will complete your team mater's job to be recommended for promotion? Or you will try to help your teammate, without your manager's knowledge, so that your teammate may not lose his job?

c) The above question will be used to judge -

Ethical values 5 4 3 2 1

Cooperation with the teammate 5 4 3 2 1

Feeling for other team mate's pain 5 4 3 2 1

2. This is to inform all the managers of   Gleason & Co that the company will shortly be recruiting 30 new employees for the federal government. As we all know that it is a huge prestigious, high valued government contract, we have to prove to them our efficiency and have to give our best to the contract. For this purpose, we have to recruit 30 new employees. Previously for recruitment purposes, we used Unstructured interview and J8udgemental decision making. But this time, we are thinking of changing the method to a structured form of an interview. Now let me clarify my reason for choosing the structure interview pattern is that in an unstructured interview, the interviewer generally asks open-ended questions and the interviewee can answer in their own words and can use as many words as they think it is fit to reply to that particular question. It could be a better way as the interviewee is at ease with the interviewer and the interviewer can judge the interviewee in a better way than that of the structured interview. But the problem is that, it is highly time-consuming and some times, the interview questions get diverted from the original topic, that they were going to discuss. The whole selection process is dependent on the judgment of the interviewer, which might be wrong or biased.

For the structured interview part, it is more of a controlled interview in which the questions are asked following a prescribed format. There can be no biasedness, very quick way of conducting and more accurate than that of an unstructured way. But it also has some problems like the interviewee may be capable but can become nervous and cannot perform well. The interviewer cannot judge the in-depth knowledge of the candidate and have to follow a prescribed way to conduct the interview.

But still inspite of these problems, I feel that a structured way is much better as -  

1. We got to know the person's knowledge about the subject matter. Since the question will be according to the requirement of the position and the skill set to be known.

2. It is more legal way as we are doing government contract, nobody should abuse us of biasedness in selection

3. We have a time limitation to complete the contract and it will be a faster way to recruit, so that we may start the work as soon as possible.

4. Since all the interviewer will answer the same question, the judgment of choosing the best candidate will be easier.

So, I hope you all will be agreeing with me to conduct a trusted form of an interview. I will be please to hear your comments or suggestions regarding this.