Question

Why is a personal interview the most important step in the sales selection process? What are the advantages and disadvantages of structured and semi=structured interviews?

What can a sales manager learn about a candidate by conducting a field observation or job shadow experience?

Answer 1

                                  Personal interview

Personal interview or the face to face survey is defined as the process or the method that utilizes a specific target population by asking hem questions and getting to have a deeper understanding of each individual at a personal level. Personal interview are of ultimate importance in the sales selection process as they help the employer to get a deeper understanding of the prospective candidate. He or she can be able to determine the skills and competencies posed by the individual as well as their corresponding work attitudes. During the personal interview session the interviewer is able to measure the employee’s intelligence and also note some of his major strengths and weakness in his respective field of operation. Personal interviews to explore the various responses of people, gather more information about their work competency.

Advantages and disadvantages of structured and semi-structured interviews

A structured interview is a form of a fixed format interview which is prepared by the human resource personnel and all the interviewee are expected to tackle the same questions as indicated in the questionnaires. The semi structured interviews on the other hand is defined as a qualitative method of inquiry that usually combines a predetermined set of inquires and the opportunity for the interview to explore the particular themes and further responses from each individual. It may even provide a loophole for open cases and is not limited to the question in the questionnaires as seen in the structured interview.

Some of the major advantages of semi structured interviews are that it provides valuable information from the participant’s context and experience. It mostly gives them the exposure to answer other question and is not limited as compared to the structured interview. The use of predetermined questions provides consistency and uniformity in the overall manner in which the interview is conducted. Some of the major disadvantages of this approach is that it can time consuming due to the plenty of time which is taken in data analysis and even collection. The people conducting the interview also may require some levels of training in order to help prevent the interviewer from suggesting the possible answers

The major advantages of the structured interview is that is provides precision and even consistency in the answers given by all the respondents. This makes work easy for data collection and even analysis since all members are subjected to same question. However some of the major limitation is that the style lacks free flow of friendlier conversation and is seen to be more rigid. It also doesn’t give people a chance to give and explain more about their work experiences