Informal Interview: This is may take place anywhere. The employer or a manager in the personnal department, may ask a few questions, like name, place of birth, previous experience, etc. It is not planned and is used widely when the labour market is tight and you need workers very badly. A friend or a relative of the employer may take a candidate to the house of the employer or manager where this type of interview may be conducted.
Formal Interview: This held in a more formal atmosphere in the employment office by the employment officer with the help of well-structured questions. The time and place of the interview are stipulated by the employment office.
Planned Interview: This is a formal interview carefully planned. The interviewer has a plan of action worked out in relation to time to be devoted to each candidate, type of information to be sought, information to be given, the modality of interview and so on. He may use the plan with some amount of flexibility.
Patterned Interview: This is also a planned interview but planned to a higher degree of accuracy, precision and exactitude. A list of questions and areas are carefully prepared. The interviewer goes down the list of questions, asking them one after another.
Non-directive Interview: This is designed to let the interviewee speak his mind freely. The interviewer is a careful and patient listener, prodding whenever the candidate is silent. The idea is to give the candidate complete freedom to ‘sell’ himself without encumbrances of the interviewer’s questions.
Depth Interview: This is designed to intensively examine the candidate’s background and thinking and to go into considerable detail on a particular subject to special interest to the candidate. The theory behind it is that if the candidate is found good in his area of special interest, the chances are high that if given a job he would take serious interest in it.
Stress Interview: This is designed to test the candidate and his conduct and behavior by putting him under conditions of stress and strain. This is very useful to test the behavior of individuals under disagreeable and trying situations.
Group Interview: This is designed to see how the candidates react to and against each other. All the candidates may be brought together in the office and they may be interviewed. The candidates may, alternatively, be given a topic for discussion and be observed as to who will lead the discussion, how they will participate in the discussion, how each will make his presentation and how they will react to each other’s views and presentation.
Panel Interview: This is done by members of the interview board or a selection committee. This is done usually for supervisory and managerial positions. It pools the collective judgement and wisdom of members of the panel. The candidate may be asked to meet the panel individually for a fairly lengthy interview.
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