 |  Interviewing: Principles and Practices, 11/e Charles J. Stewart,
Purdue University--West Lafayette
William B. Cash,
National Louis University--Evanston
An Introduction to Interviewing
Chapter SummaryInterviewing is an interactional communication process between two parties, at least one of whom has a predetermined and serious purpose, that involves the asking and answering of questions. This definition encompasses a wide variety of interview settings that require training, preparation, interpersonal skills, flexibility, and a willingness to face risks involved in intimate, person-to-person interactions. Interviewing is a learned, not an inherited, skill and art, and perhaps the first hurdle to overcome is the assumption that we do it well because we do it so often. The increasing flexibility of the telephone and the Internet is resulting in significant numbers of interviews no longer occurring face-to-face, and this is posing new challenges and concerns.
Because we are involved in interviews every day, we assume the process is simple and requires little, if any, formal training. What is so difficult about asking a few questions, providing a few answers, or exchanging a bit of information or advice? But if you think interviewing is simple and basic skills come naturally, recall some of your recent experiences. Most of us learn how to interview by observing others or taking part in interviews, thus perpetuating many poor interviewing practices handed down from one generation to another. We assume that practice makes perfect, but 20 years of experience may be one year of flawed experience repeated 20 times, sort of like our golf swing, driving, or cooking.
There is a vast difference between skilled and unskilled interviewers and interviewees, and the skilled ones know that practice makes perfect only if you know what you are practicing. Studies in health care, for example, have revealed that medical students, physicians, and nurses who do not receive formal training in interviewing patients actually become less effective interviewers over time, not more effective.
The first essential step in developing and improving interviewing skills is to understand the deceptively complex interviewing process and its many interacting variables. Successful interviewing requires you to understand both parties, the exchanging of roles, perceptions of self and other, communication interactions, feedback, situation, and the influence of outside forces. Chapter 2 explains and illustrates the interviewing process by developing a model step-by-step that contains all of the fundamental elements that interact in each interview.
Our purposes in writing this book are twofold. First, we want to introduce you to the basic skills applicable for all interviews (Chapters 2, 3, and 4) and specific skills needed in specialized settings (Chapters 5 to 13). And, second, we want to help you improve your interviewing skills for a lifetime, not merely while you are a student or a recent graduate looking for your first position. |
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2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education