Board and Sequential Interviews in Selection: An Experimental Study of their Comparative Effectiveness

Abstract

Despite strong attacks on its use—such as that of Eysenck—and the consistent conclusions of the literature reviews that its reliability and validity is unsatisfactory, the interview continues to be the main technique in selection. Whilst a great deal of research has been done on it, the focus of attention has usually been on interviewers themselves and the results they achieve. Other perspectives, such as the influence of the candidate or the effects of different types of interview, have been relatively neglected. The study reported then concerns the latter, comparing the efficiency of two of the most widely‐used kinds of selection interview—the Board or Panel in which a candidate faces several interviewers at once, and the sequential interview, where the interviewee meets a series of interviewers one at a time.