Behavioral Job Interviewing: Hire the Best Course

Module 1: Interview Purpose and Objectives

• Identify the major purposes of the employment interview and its place in the federal selection process.
• Explain the financial and organizational costs of a poor selection, and why those costs are difficult to reverse in federal service.
• Compare the predictive validity of the structured interview against the other assessment tools agencies commonly rely on.
• Weigh the documented advantages and limitations of the employment interview, and identify which weaknesses structure actually corrects.
• Describe the legal framework governing interviews used in federal selection, and the four steps of the selection process the interview sits inside.

Module 2: Behavior-Based Interviews

• Identify the key elements of a behavior-based interview and explain how it differs from traditional interview approaches.
• Explain how past behavior is used to assess future job performance.
• Distinguish closed-ended, open-ended, hypothetical, and behavior-based questions, and convert a weak question into a behavior-based one.
• Develop lead and probing questions tied to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies a job analysis identifies.
• Recognize the question topics that must be kept out of an interview, and redirect a conversation that drifts toward one.

Module 3: Creating a Scoring Mechanism

• Explain what a scoring mechanism does for an interview, and why it must be built before any candidate is seen.
• Use job analysis to identify the competencies, knowledge, skills, and abilities a position requires.
• Build rating-scale level definitions with behavioral anchors that distinguish routine work from complex work.
• Develop level examples that place a candidate’s actual answer on the scale.
• Apply the same process to a non-technical competency, anchoring on the difficulty of the situation rather than on the candidate’s manner.

Module 4: Planning, Conducting, and Assessing

• Plan and organize a structured interview using behavior-based interview techniques.
• Conduct an interview from opening statement through closing, using consistent questions and effective note-taking practices.
• Assess candidate responses against established rating scales and job-related criteria.
• Recognize the eight common rating and bias errors, and apply the countermeasure that addresses each one.
• Distinguish process errors from content errors, and explain why content errors carry the greater consequence.