ABSTRACT
This chapter presents research pertaining to the employment interview as a specific example of a complex social interaction governed by a number of rules and regulations to which participants are expected to conform. The focus of the material initially dealt with the employment interview from the interviewer's perspective, setting out the issues relating to the various approaches found to be relevant for practice. Of course, interpersonal skills and strategies contribute to goal attainment of interviewers and applicants who are engaged in a reciprocal social relationship and hence each perspective warrants consideration. Derived from empirical research A. J. Chapman and D. I. Zweig proposed a taxonomy of interview structure factors which represented content and evaluation components. Unstructured interviews specify no standardisation of questioning sequence but rather delegate such control to the interviewer's discretion. The extent to which employment interviews are able to meet both selection and recruitment functions seems more complex and somewhat conflicting.
