Interviews from Scratch: Individual Differences in Writing Interview Questions

Abstract

Against best practice recommendations, interviewers prefer unstructured interviews where they are not beholden to regimentation. In cases where interviews are less structured, the interviewer typically generates his or her own set of interview questions. Even in structured interviews though, the initial interview content must be generated by someone. Thus, it is important to understand the different factors that influence what types of questions individuals generate in interview contexts. The current research aims to understand the types of interview questions individuals generate, factors that affect the quality of those questions, how skill in generating interview questions relates to skill in evaluating existing interview questions, and how individual traits relate to skill in generating interview questions. Results show that respondents who are skilled in evaluating existing interview questions are also skilled in writing interview questions from scratch, and these skills relate to general mental ability and social intelligence. Respondents generated questions that most commonly assessed applicant history and self-perceived applicant characteristics, whereas only 30% of questions generated were situational or behavioral.