Roles and Responsibilities of the Interviewer

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In any interview situation, there are specific behaviors that competent interviewers share. Specifically, they must identify potential barriers, make the interviewee comfortable, ask ethical and appropriate questions, and effectively listen and respond to the interviewee. In addition, interviewers must be culturally sensitive.

Identify Potential Barriers. Before heading into an interview situation, interviewers should take some time to reflect on potential barriers that might disrupt the interview. For example, is the space where the interview will take place quiet, private, and fairly neat and organized? True story: Val is an academic counselor at a prestigious university who is unfortunate enough to have an office next door to a copy room with an old Xerox machine that causes her wall to shake whenever one of her colleagues makes a photocopy. In order to avoid this distraction, she must take students to a private conference room when interviewing them about their coursework or their career plans.

Make the Interviewee Comfortable. Interviewees, particularly job applicants and medical patients, are often very nervous in interview situations—and understandably so. A good interviewer should adapt to the situational and relational contexts to help the interviewee feel at ease (Ralston, Kirkwood, & Burant, 2003). It would be effective and appropriate, for example, for an interviewer to smile, make eye contact, and offer a handshake. But be sure to keep these behaviors appropriate to the context; imagine if your doctor entered the examining room and gave you a big hug or if a job interviewer told you about his problems with his partner’s parents.

Ask Ethical and Appropriate Questions. We’ve already discussed types of questions and question sequences that you can use to guide productive, competent interviews that achieve your goals. It’s also important to remember that good questions are also ethical and appropriate questions. For example, if Erik is a representative from his school newspaper interviewing a biology professor about her recent grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), his questions should stick to her research and her plans to implement a new lab on campus. It would be inappropriate and unethical for him to ask how much money she will be receiving from the NIH or whether she expects to receive a promotion and salary increase from the university after receiving the award.

On a job interview, certain unethical and inappropriate questions are also illegal. We illustrate these later in this appendix.

Listen and Respond Effectively. The role of the interviewer is not limited to structuring an interview and asking questions. After all, an effective interviewer needs to listen to, respond to, and evaluate the information that the answers to those questions reveal. Throughout the interview, the interviewer should keep both immediate and future goals in mind by making notes (written or mental) during the interview. A medical doctor might take notes about your family history and ask follow-up questions or order tests regarding your health based on this discussion.