Gale,
We have continuously used the roundtable approach on our second interviews. I feel it is an open way to communicate and include everyone in the hiring process, if they'd like to get involved.
As long as our Campus Director has been present and in control, there haven't been too many problems with one opinion dominating others. I really think it is up to the Director to maintain that control and to remind everyone to stay objective.
Thank you,
Erin Bjornson
Denise,
I have seen this work particularly well with candidates for admissions rep positions for all of the reasons that you state above. It is important to design the questions in advance and to design questions that can be answered by all candidates. One person needs to facilitate the dialog, asking all of the questions. This gives everyone else an opportunity to truly observe and jot down notes resgarding the candidates' responses and reactions. It also helps to limit the number of candidates in a group. I am not certain as to the ideal number of candidates but three to four seems like the right number. Thanks, Denise, for adding to the thread.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Gale,
In a company I used to be with we did something similar to the round table. We called it a group facilitated discussion. After introductions and administrative information was out of the way, the applicants sat at a table and were given a scenario to talk about. A few people already with the company, usually three, sat outside the circle to evaluate what was being said by the applicants.
It gave us a chance to observe a variety of things. Was there a clear leader? Follower? Did people speak up appropriately? Was there someone who monopolized the entire dialogue? It also seemed to be a good way to see how people worked on a team and dealt with views that differed from their own.
We found it to be one of the most valuable pieces of our interview process. This was only one part of a multi-step interview the candidates went through.
Gale,
We used that approach when we were hiring admissions reps and it worked well. I would classify it as a group interview. There needs to be a leader who ensures that everyone has an opportunity to ask their questions and all candidates need to be brought into the conversation. One way to ensure that no one person dominates the opinions is for each interviewer to write an assessment of each candidate and that then becomes the basis for the debrief conversation. Good question.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
