COMMITTEE INTERVIEW

In a Committee Interview (also known as a Panel Interview) many applicants and members of the staff (representing the interview panelists) sit around a conference table so the question-answer process starts. The staff members direct the questions and the applicants` answers are compared. This type of interview is becoming more and more popular; the only disadvantage of Committee Interviews is that it is stressful since there are many interviewers involved.

It is more likely for large companies/organizations to use this type of interview and the Committee usually has from 2 to 8 people.

There are different advantages when it comes to Committee Interviews:

• They are reliable, since the staff members represent different aspects and areas of the company. They get the same answer from the applicant and assess it from different important perspectives.
• They save a lot of time because of the serial-interviewing process.
• They help discard many of the applications, thus, making the one-to-one interviewing process more efficient.
• It gives a great opportunity to see how the staff works together.

There are many formats included:

• Skeet Shoot Format: The applicant is asked a series of different questions from different panelists in order to test his/her ability to handle stress and think clearly.
• Presentation Format: The applicant makes a presentation of a given topic to the entire committee.
• Role Format: The members of the committee ask different questions (position-related) to the candidates. Questions have different categories, for example, a member of the committee asks a question about management, another asks a question about human resources, another asks a question about customer service, etc.

Tips for interviewers:

• Check on how familiar with the company the candidates are and how much research they have done before going for the interview.
• See how confident the candidates are, if they use the names of the panelists and focus on their answers.
• Check if the candidates write notes down, this means they are taking many things into account.
• Check the body language of each candidate.
• Remember what candidates talk about their experiences and ask questions during the interview.
• Make sure that every member of the staff understands their role in the meeting.