A to Z of Individual Interview

By Albert Barkley Published November 14, 2019 Education

The individual interview is also known as a face-to-face interview. It is known as an efficient form of assessment. In an individual interview, the interviewers have to talk with the interviews from 30 minutes to an hour.

With the help of the individual interview, the interviewer tries to get an idea about the ideas, beliefs, attitudes and experiences of the persons who are coming to give an interview. There are various ways to conduct individual interviews.

Some essential ways to conduct individual interviews are face-to-face, by phone or by video conference etc. Here, we will provide complete detail about the individual interview with the students.

Tips to conduct an individual interview

If you are going to conducting the individual interview with full preparation, you will feel that to conduct an individual interview is an enlightening process. Some essential tips to conduct an individual interview are given below;

Prepare for the interview

By conducting an individual interview, you are going to get enough information from a specific person. Therefore, you should try to prepare yourself for the interview. For this reason, first of all, you should research the person who interviews you are going to conduct. If you are able to get enough information about that person, you will be able to control your interview process. Secondly, you should try to clarify your objectives. It will provide peace of mind to the interviewer to talk about one aspect of his personal life or professional life. Thirdly, you should try to prepare a list of the interview questions. While making a list of the interview questions, you should make sure that these questions should be flexible and open-minded. Fourthly, you should try to decide some topics for the small talk like about weather or traffic. It will be helpful to you to get the intention of the interviewer before conducting the interview. At last, you should never forget to bring a recording device with you.

Conduct the interview

After preparing yourself for the interview, the next step is to conduct the interview. When you are going to conduct an interview with a person, you will have to follow some specific steps. First of all, you should try to introduce yourself. Secondly, you should try to make the person comfortable with the help of small talk. Thirdly, you should try to ask your interview questions by maintaining eye contact with the interviewer. Fourthly, after asking questions from the interviewer, you should try to listen to his answers attentively and note down the main points. Fifthly, you should try to let the person be natural. For this reason, you should not ask canned phrases from the interviewer. Sixthly, you should try to stay focused on your interview questions. Therefore, there is no need to ask personal questions from the interviewer. At last, you should try to stay in control. It is possible only if you are giving importance to the answers of the interviewer.

Wrap up the interview

You should try to wrap the individual interview in a professional way. This thing will provide feelings to the interviewer that you have conducted his interviewer with full control. When you have conducted the whole interview, you should try to thank the person because he has given his valuable time to you. When you have reached home after conducting the interview, you should also try to send him the thank-you note. Moreover, you can also send him a thanks mail. This is the best way to enjoy happy relations with him even in the future.

Advantages of individual interview

There are lots of advantages to an individual interview. Some of them are explained below;

By conducting the individual interview, it is possible for the students to judge the technical skills of the interviewer.
With the help of individual interview, it is also easy for the students to use the visual aids for the question/answer process.
The individual interview can also overcome the language barrier. Its reason is that the interviewee can request the interviewer to talk in the local language.
The students can also feel that there is a cooperating environment when they are going to evaluate the data of the interview.
These individual interviews are also helpful for fewer technology students to gather enough data for their academic papers.
These individual interviews are also helpful for the students to increase rapport between the interviewee and interviewer.

Disadvantages of individual interview

Along with advantages, there are also some disadvantages of the individual interview. These disadvantages are explained below;

The students have to pay higher costs of the individual interviewees than another form of the interview.
In order to conduct an individual interview, it is necessary that the interviewee should have impressive communication and listening skills. Without impressive listening and communication skills, it is almost impossible for the interviewee to get the required benefits of the individual interview.
In order to gather data by conducting individual interviews, there requires more time than other forms of interviews.
There is also a possibility that the interviewer will show biasing and you will not be able to gather authentic data relevant to your topic idea.
It is also hard for the students to gather confidential information relevant to the nature of the interview.
The interviewee and interviewer both have to face some kinds of geographical limitations while conducting and giving the interview.

Individual interviews vs group interviews

The possible differences between group interviews and individual interviews are given below;

In the group interviews, there are fewer chances of biasing, whereas, in the individual interviews, there are more chances of biasing.
There requires less time to gather the data by conducting group interviews. On the other hand, while conducting individual interviews, there requires more time to gather the data.
In the group interview, there are chances of contradictions due to different point of views of the different people. On the other hand, in the individual interview, there are fewer chances of contradiction because you have to conduct an individual interview from one person only.
While conducting the group interviews, you will find less shareable information. On the other hand, while conducting the individual interview, you will find more shareable information.

Information By: The Academic Papers UK

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