Factors Leading to Interview Question Decisions: Model of Interviewer Question Preferences

Abstract

This study expands upon interview research by developing a tentative model to explain interview question preferences. The Model of Interviewer Question Preferences highlights interviewer factors that occur along two causal paths: job relevance factors that leads to identification of questions that accurately differentiate applicants in terms of hireability and social factors and past experiences. When combining both the job relevance path and social exposure path, nearly 48% of the variance in preference for interview questions was explained in a sample of 186 employees with experience conducting interviews. Factors such as question job relevance and question exposure were highly related to question preference. Most generally, results suggest that people prefer to ask questions they are familiar with and think are job-relevant.