Interviews play a vital role in the hiring process, providing a critical face to face portion in the hiring process that may be lacked by previous steps. These critical face to face portions may include resume screening. For any business corporation, interviews generally comprise an important aspect of the recruitment of the company. Interviews also act as a means of data collection for a research subject. Interviews are the face to face conversations between an interviewer and an interviewee, whereby the interviewer is asked questions to ascertain his/her suitability to undertake a certain role or responsibility. Interviews can be classified depending on the count of people involved (personal and group interviews), based on judging the abilities (Behavioral-based, depth and also problem-solving interview) as well as based on the planning (Mann, 2016). Based on planning, an interview is generally classified into a structured and unstructured interview. In a structured interview, each of the candidates is usually asked similar questions, usually in a predetermined format. Focus is mainly on ones’ experience and the assets he/she can be able to bring into the organization.
On the other hand, unstructured interviews are interviews that are generally casual and also unrehearsed. The dependence here is on a free-flowing communication whereby the focus is on the personal qualities relating to work (Wethington, & McDarby, 2015). The spontaneity of the event, as well as the design of the interview, is the main determinants of the unstructured interview. The purpose of this paper is to provide a persuasive essay on why a structured interview is always better than an unstructured interview.
A structured interview is postulated to be better than an unstructured interview due to several reasons. First, a structured interview utilizes a process of inquiry that is standardized, with this process helping the interviewer to ask intentional questions that enable the gathering of extensive information on the subjects being researched. However, the unstructured interview is highly dependent on spontaneity as its form of inquiry. Due to the casual nature of asking questions in this interview, the interviewer is not able to broadly and extensively obtain much information on the interviewee. Besides, structured interviews are generally based on the past experiences of the interviewee, allowing the interviewer to understand the assets and value that the interviewee can bring to the organization (Dipboye, 2017). However, unstructured interviews generally explore the abilities of the interviewee, not exploiting his/her past experiences that usually determine what one is capable of offering to the organization.
In a structured interview, the questions that asked in the interview are usually standardized and premeditated. The interviewer generally depends on an interview sequence, with the interview taking a directive nature. On the other hand, an unstructured interview is generally unrehearsed and does not use predetermined questions in the data gathering process. The researcher does not predetermine the questions, entailing the use of free-flowing communication. This method of asking questions in the unstructured interview may leave some important part information that may be critical for the hiring process (Roulston, & Choi, 2018). Besides, an unstructured interview is generally non-directive.
A structured interview makes the use of close-ended questions. These close-ended questions generally give the interviewer the opportunity of restricting the interviewee to a certain possible response range, which is generally in line with the context of the research. On the other hand, unstructured interview entails using open-ended questions in the interview (Wethington, & McDarby, 2015). These open-ended questions do not necessarily restrict the interviewee to certain options that are pre-conceived. The respondent in an unstructured interview covers questions from multiple perspectives. The close-ended questions generally give the interviewer the advantage of restricting the interviewee’s response, making sure that the respondent does not cover content that is generally unsuitable for the interview.
Data that is collected through an unstructured interview is usually more objective and also easier to analyze it as compared to an unstructured interview. The reason is usually that structured interview generally requires the interviewee to give answers that are usually brief and relevant to the question. However, the answers in an unstructured interview are from multiple perspectives. Another vital aspect of a structured interview is that it can be used in the collection of data from a large sample of the target population, unlike the unstructured interview (Roulston, & Choi, 2018). This is because the interview process is usually easier in a structured interview due to the standardization of the questions. Unlike in the unstructured interview, the process is casual and rehearsed, making it unsuitable for the collection of data from large samples.
An unstructured interview is generally more time-consuming in comparison to a structured interview. This is because the process in the unstructured interview is not limited to particular questions or a specified sequence. Due to the lack of specified questions, unstructured interview tends to consume more time and resources, making the process costly as well (Dipboye, 2017). Since the structured interview follows a sequence, it saves a lot of time as well as resources.
A structured interview is generally reliable and less subjective as compared to unstructured interview. Structured interview hence makes more suitable in the collection of relevant responses to the research context, while the data can also easily categorized and analyzed. This makes the structured interview better than the unstructured interview.
A structured interview can be collected physically as well as through questionnaires and surveys. However, unstructured interviews are usually restricted to face to face communication to collect relevant data. This is because unstructured interview generally uses general questions, making it hard to use questionnaires and surveys. This leaves face to face conversation as the only suitable method for the interview (Roulston, & Choi, 2018). Due to this, a structured interview becomes better than an unstructured interview since it is not a must to undertake a face to face communication.
A structured interview is usually objective, compared to unstructured interview that is generally highly subjective. In an unstructured interview, different parameters are usually used in the evaluation of the research subjects, with this affecting the objectivity of the data that is gathered as well as the research findings at the end of the interview or research. In a structured interview, evaluation of research subjects is generally done using a sane set of standardized questions that are usually in the same sequence (Mann, 2016). Due to this, a structured interview becomes a more objective data collection technique as compared to unstructured interview.
Generally, a structured interview is better than an unstructured interview. This makes it suitable to be used in systematic investigations due to its nature of large data sets. Further, structured interviews allow for the comparability of data, whereas unstructured interview does not allow for data comparability. This is generally because, in a structured interview, the data is subjected to parameters of inquiry that are mainly the same whereas an unstructured interview, the research/interview questions are developed uniquely for each of the participants. As a result, a structured interview is much always better than an unstructured interview.
References
Wethington, E., & McDarby, M. L. (2015). Interview methods (structured, semistructured, unstructured). The Encyclopedia of Adulthood and Aging, 1-5.
Mann, S. (2016). The research interview. Reflective practice and reflexivity in research processes.
Dipboye, R. L. (2017). The selection/recruitment interview: Core processes and contexts. The Blackwell handbook of personnel selection, 119-142.
Roulston, K., & Choi, M. (2018). Qualitative interviews. The SAGE handbook of qualitative data collection, 233-249.