Interviewing: Any Questions

1
Interviewing Any Questions?

• Interviewing as a Communication Interaction
• October 26

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Interviewing Defined

• Planned, face to face encounters in which at
  least one of the participants has a specific
  objective in mind
• Specialized, purposive, dyadic interaction that
  consists primarily of questions and answers
• Conversation with a purpose
• Formality, strategy, Q and A

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Types of Interviews

• Counseling interviews
• Employment interviews
• Exit interviews
• Grievance interviews
• Performance appraisal interviews
• Persuasive interviews
• Group/panel interviews
• Information gathering interviews

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Interview Phases

• Opening Phase
• --Establishing rapport
• --Determining orientation
• --Understanding motivation
• Question-Response Phase
• Closing Phase
• --Post-interview followup

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Types of Interview Questions

• Open/Hypothetical Open questions
• Closed questions
• Probing questions
• Loaded questions
• Leading questions

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Legal Issues and Interviews

• Equal Employment Opportunity Laws
• --more than 15 employees
• --more than 50,000 in federal contracts
• --engage in interstate commerce
• BFOQ--Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications

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Dealing With Illegal Questions

• How badly do you want the job?
• Ask for clarification/connection to job
• Side step and neutralize
• Listen for the fear behind the question
• Is this a gross violation?---contact the company

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Preparing for Selection Interviews

• Review your own strengths and weaknesses
• Practice potentially difficult questions
• Research the company
• Research the interviewer if possible
• Anticipate requests
• --resumes
• --drug tests

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Why Interviews Fail??

• Style Problems--personal appearance, limp
  handshake, lack of eye contact
• Attitude Problems--superiority complex, not
  willing to start at the bottom, no sense of humor
• Communication Problems--inability to express
  oneself, nervousness, condemned past employers,
  couldnt explain problems on resume

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Interviews as Rhetorical Situations

• Interviews proceed from an exigence
• Interviews occur within some system of
  constraints (the setting--legal, social, time
  dimensions, psychological climate, legal and
  ethical constraints
• Interviews are geared toward a particular audience

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Interview Structures

• The Funnel Sequence--broad, open-ended questions
  narrowing to more specific
• The Inverted Funnel Sequence--more inductive,
  specific to general
• The Tunnel Sequence--similarly structured
  questions suggesting that the candidate follow
  with responses at the same level of specificity

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Political Communication
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Political communication as a subset of
communication

• Its all about process
• Three main actorsleaders, media, and the public
• Involves the exchange and interpretation of
  messages
• Broadly concerned with governance or public policy

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The Academic Study of Political Communication

• Can use quantitative methods (measuring effects
  and attitudes, attempts to predict outcomes)
• Can use qualitative (studies of presidential
  rhetoric, attempts to reach understanding of
  individual cases)
• Underlying thesiscant understand politics
  without studying communication systems and
  messages

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What do PoliComm folks study?

• The Rhetorical Presidency
• Role of the media in the political process
• Genres of presidential rhetoric
• Campaigns and advertising
• Debates
• New media and its impact on the political process
• Agenda settingwe dont tell people what to
  think, we tell them what to think about!

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Classics of PoliComm Paul Lazarsfeld

• First comprehensive study of politics and media
  use, Erie NY, 1940
• Spent six months conducting interviews and
  tracking individuals and their attitudes
• Findings
• Social factors are the best predictors of voting
• The two-step flow theory (Interpersonal trumps
  mass media)
• Opinion leaders and their influence
• Overall, media effects are limited and constrained

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Classics of PoliComm Joseph Klapper

• 1960 book, The Effects of Mass Communication,
  student of Lazarsfeld
• Research to this point did not support any
  significant, independent effects of media
• The hypodermic needle theory is wrong, media may
  reinforce but not control
• People use mechanisms to blunt media influence
  selective exposure, selective attention,
  selective retention

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A Political Communication Quiz

• Answer true or false to the following
• statements
• Most presidents make a strong effort to keep most
  of their campaign promises.
• General election presidential political ads spend
  more than half of their air time attacking

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Political Communication Quiz

• When candidates make statements in speeches, they
  usually expect us to take them at their word and
  so provide little supporting evidence.
• Most candidates ads lie most of the time.
• The quality of presidential general election
  campaigns has steadily worsened over the year

20
Political Communication Quiz

• Campaign discourse in speeches and debates has
  become steadily more negative over the years.
• Reporters pretty accurately represent the content
  and level of attack in their stories about
  candidate speeches.
• Voters prefer ads that contrast the records of
  the candidates to ads that simply attack.

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Political Communication Quiz

• There isnt much useful information in campaigns
  its all mostly hype.
• Political advertising truns off voters and makes
  them stay away from the polls as a result.
• Women know less than men about politics.