Understanding Roles and Responsibilities in Interviews

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Jan, a thirty-five-year-old high school biology teacher, is seeking a new career. She can approach this job hunt in two ways. First, she could simply answer advertisements for open positions and hope to be called in for an interview. Alternatively, she can identify people or organizations that she thinks she’d like to work for and arrange for information-gathering interviews with them. In the first approach, Jan, the job hunter, fills the role of interviewee—she answers questions posed by the interviewer. In the second example, Jan acts as the interviewer, asking people in various positions for information about potential career paths in their industry. So how are these roles different? How are they similar? Let’s find out.