Interviews are one tool among many used in various selection processes, including the law enforcement selection process. In general, the goal of a selection procedure is to select the best qualified individual for the job while minimizing potential errors in decisions made using these tools. One way to minimize the potential for decision errors related to interviews is to gain an understanding of the characteristics, development considerations, and evaluation processes associated with structured interviews. This article discusses these aspects of structured interviews as well as employment law, with a focus on law enforcement.
Interview Characteristics
Levels of Structure
There are three levels of structure used during interviews. At one extreme is the structured interview that contains high levels of standardization and consistency and is designed to minimize question variation during an interview. At the opposite end is the unstructured interview that lacks standardization and consistency of questions asked during the interview process. Finally, combining both structured and unstructured interview characteristics is the semi-structured interview. The appropriate level of structure used for an interview will vary depending on the goals of the interview. Additional information for unstructured and semi-structured interviews is provided herein, but the main focus is to explain the importance of structured interviews and provide guidelines to ensure high levels of standardization and consistency throughout the development process.
Unstructured and Semi-Structured Interviews
The traditional interview may be referred to as an unstructured interview. These interviews lack structure and consistency in that interviewers asked interviewees a variety of questions but do not ask every interviewee the same questions. Interviewers are also permitted to ask unscripted or follow-up questions related to applicants’ or interviewees’ responses. This process allows for an expansive amount of information to be collected from applicants and interviewees but prevents interviewers from making comparisons across interviewees because of the inconsistency of information collected.
A semi-structured interview is an interview containing questions that all interviewees answer but allows the interviewer to seek additional information from each interviewee by asking follow-up questions during the interview. Interviewers can compare interviewees’ responses to questions asked of everyone but allows for interviewers to gather additional information to clarify interviewees’ responses.
Structured Interviews
Structured interviews were created to improve the ambiguous and inconsistent unstructured interview. A structured interview is different from an unstructured interview in that it provides standardization and consistency as well as quantifies a qualitative evaluation process. With regard to employment hiring practices, structured interviews were developed to allow more accurate comparisons across job applicants as well as comparisons to current employees within jobs.
Structured interviews require that every interviewee receives identical questions in the same order and is evaluated using the same evaluation process. Structured interviews are the most rigid in design and offer the greatest amount of consistency across interviewees. The consistency of a structured interview is emphasized not only in the administrative process of the interview but also during the evaluation of responses.
Factors Impacting Standardization and Consistency
High levels of standardization and consistency are essential to maintaining structure during the interview process. Factors that may impact the standardization of a structured interview include the interview environment, order and delivery of questions, length of interviewees’ responses, and documentation method of responses. The structured interview is designed to be rigid and controlled, but if other factors are not also controlled, then standardization and consistency of the process may be compromised.
Interview Environment
Controlling the interview environment is advised and considered good practice so all interviewees experience the same treatment. Lights, sounds, and talking should be minimized and controlled. For example, an interviewee who is interrupted by an alarm during an interview has a different experience from those who are not interrupted. Another example is when some interviewees complete the structured interview in a room with poor lighting and cool temperature and others do so in a room with bright lights and warm temperature. Differences in the interview environment can impact the standardization and consistency of the interview and make comparisons between and across interviewees inaccurate.
Order and Delivery of Questions
One way to ensure standardization of the structured interview is to ask the structured interview questions in the same order and with the same delivery for every interviewee. This includes wording of questions, pronunciation, annunciation, body language, and tone when asking interviewees questions. Minor changes between interviewees may result in a difference in interviewees’ interpretation of the questions. One way to eliminate the potential variations between interviewees is to select one person to read the interview questions using a script. This creates consistency in question wording as well as delivery across all interviewees.
When a large number of interviewees are participating in the structured interview process, standardization and consistency can be preserved by using video and/or audio recordings of the interviewer reading the questions. This ensures that there are no variations in wording of questions, pronunciation, annunciation, body language, and tone of voice. This level of consistency during structured interview administration is paramount to ensuring a successful structured interview process.
Interviewees’ Responses
Other factors that can compromise the standardization of a structured interview are the length of the interviewees’ responses to questions and the documentation of those responses. All interviewees should be afforded the same amount of time to respond to a question (e.g., 2 min). This standardization increases interviewees’ perceived level of fairness because all interviewees received the same treatment during the structured interview.
How raters document responses is also important and may differ for live versus recorded evaluation of responses. For live structured interviews, evaluators must be diligent in documenting all relevant information during the interviewee’s response. Margin for error in live structured interviews is low, and evaluators must accurately document all relevant information immediately. Another option is to have evaluators present during the live structured interview but also video/ audio record responses for later review if needed. A third option involves having no evaluators present during the structured interview administration and video/audio record responses for evaluators to review at a later date.
Structured Interview Development
Certain factors should be considered when developing a structured interview: question relevance to the job (selection interviews), how many and what type of interview questions will be developed, and how the interviewees’ responses will be evaluated. The different methods used to develop structured interview questions vary in complexity, but there are a few guidelines that all development methods should include.
Job Relevance
Structured interviews used for employment decisions should be developed using information about the job, which is gathered through a job analysis (i.e., a process that identifies the work behaviors and tasks performed on the job). This process also identifies knowledge, skills, and abilities an individual must possess in order to successfully perform the job. Questions used during a selection interview should be related to the target job.
Writing structured interview questions can be a difficult task if knowledgeable individuals are not consulted during the development process. When writing structured interview questions, individuals currently working in the job or their supervisors should be included to ensure that the content of the questions remains relevant to the job. Individuals developing structured interviews should collect data demonstrating that the structured interview questions are related to the target job.
Types of Structured Interview Questions
There are two types of structured interview questions: situational questions and past experience questions. Situational questions describe a situation or a scenario and then ask the interviewee to describe or explain what he or she would say or how he or she would handle the situation. This type of interview question is future focused. In other words, situational questions assume that the interviewee will describe how he or she would behave if he or she were really in the situation.
The second type of structured interview question relates to past experience. These questions simply ask the interviewee to provide examples of past experiences or training related to the question. For instance, if a structured interview question is written to evaluate interviewees’ customer service abilities, the question may ask the interviewees to describe a past experience when they had to assist an angry customer. The interviewees would then provide one or more examples of past experiences dealing with angry customers. Given the premise that past behaviors predict future behaviors, interviewees are then evaluated based on the likelihood that they will be successful in handling similar situations in the future.
Evaluating Interviewees’ Responses
A common method used to evaluate interviewees’ responses to structured interview questions is to create examples of behavior called benchmarks. Benchmarks are examples of objective behaviors that interviewees exhibit or state during the structured interview process. Benchmarks are a commonly used form of evaluation for structured interviews because individuals knowledgeable about the job are able to develop objective examples of behavior. These examples of behavior are then used to categorize interviewees’ responses as unacceptable, acceptable, or outstanding. The categories typically correspond to a numerical value that can be combined across all structured interview questions to create a score, thus creating a method of comparing all interviewees. This process of assigning numerical values to behavioral benchmarks quantifies an otherwise qualitative process.
Evaluating Structured Interviews
Evaluator Selection
Selecting individuals to evaluate or rate structured interview responses is an important process. It is critical that individuals selected to evaluate an interviewee’s responses are knowledgeable about the job. For example, evaluating the structured interview responses of an individual in the law enforcement field may be difficult for someone who does not have experience or training within that same field. For certain jobs, like law enforcement, the evaluator’s current rank (e.g., sergeant, lieutenant, captain) is also an important consideration. For example, when evaluating the structured interview responses of an applicant applying for a police sergeant job, individuals at the officer rank would not possess the experience and training needed to evaluate sergeant applicants’ interview responses. When evaluating structured interview responses for law enforcement careers and similar rank-structured public safety careers, individuals selected as evaluators should be employed at that same rank or one rank higher. For instance, when testing for police sergeant, an assessor should have attained at minimum the rank of sergeant, but lieutenants may also be used.
Evaluation Process
An effective method for evaluating interviewees’ responses to structured interview questions is to use panels that consist of two or more evaluators or raters. The raters should listen and observe the interviewees, then use the benchmarks to make ratings based on the interviewees’ responses to each structured interview question. There are numerous options and practices used to combine ratings for multiple raters. One practice is to use a preliminary and final rating process that requires raters to reach an agreement on the final rating. Other practices simply average the ratings given by all raters. The specific rating process used may vary depending on the needs of the organization. Regardless of the exact rating process, it is important that all raters use the same benchmarks in the same manner to evaluate interviewees’ responses. This ensures that the evaluation process is consistently applied across all interviewees.
Evaluator Training
An important step in increasing the consistency of the structured interview rating process and reducing the potential for errors is to train evaluators or raters on the rating process. Training raters how to use benchmarks and other evaluation processes improves the consistency of the scoring process as well as reduces errors. In addition, training ensures that each rater understands the rating process and how the benchmarks relate to each question. Consistency of the rating process is improved when raters are trained to follow basic guidelines and processes during the evaluation process. Specifically, training should emphasize the importance of rater objectivity when rating interviewees’ responses. The training should discuss the benchmarks for each structured interview question as well as provide practice sessions for raters to evaluate interviewees’ responses using the benchmarks.
Adequate rater training should teach raters to observe and record only relevant behaviors and to take detailed notes. General note taking and short hand or individualized note taking methods can be allowed, but providing practice sessions for raters to evaluate responses will help ensure that raters are observing and capturing the same behaviors for the same interviewees.
Rater training also provides the opportunity to educate raters about the types of rating errors commonly made by untrained raters. When untrained raters commit rating errors, it may lead to problems with consistency and perceived fairness of the entire evaluation process. Untrained raters may make the mistake of using feelings or personality traits to evaluate responses instead of maintaining objectivity. Raters should avoid making inferences or assumptions about what an interviewee is trying to articulate and instead remain objective by only evaluating what the interviewee states he or she would say and do. This is where audio and/or visual recordings of the interviewees’ responses are useful. Recordings allow raters the opportunity to take breaks and listen to interviewees’ responses multiple times to ensure objectivity. Recording responses also increases the level of detail in raters’ documentation as well as confidence and consistency in evaluations.
Employment Law and Structured Interviews
There are several legal entities and laws designed to protect workers and job applicants in the hiring process. It is important that individuals involved with the hiring process have an understanding of the legal practices that organizations should implement when developing and administering structured interviews and other selection procedures. Law enforcement is an extremely litigious field as it relates to enforcing the law and dealing with the individual rights of suspects and those who have been arrested. The internal workings of law enforcement, as it relates to employment practices and employment law, have an equal if not greater presence in both active and closed U.S. court cases. Law enforcement administrators and human resources professionals should be vigilant in ensuring that hiring and promotional practices are legal.
It should be noted that agencies exist at the federal, state, and local levels. The main federal agencies that oversee employment law and staffing are the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor. The most common laws that apply to hiring are Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964, 1991), Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), Americans with Disabilities Act (1990, 2008), Genetics Information Nondiscrimination Act (2008), and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (1994). Additionally, there are civil service laws that may apply to government entities that have requirements for staffing, which are different from those of private entities. Using properly designed and administered selection procedures such as structured interviews can minimize the possibility of an organization being named in a lawsuit brought by an interviewee.
Structured Interviews in Law Enforcement
Hiring and Promotions
There are several evaluative tools and tests to choose from when designing selection procedures for hiring and promotions within law enforcement. Given the level of public contact and concerns with public safety, it is increasingly important that police departments hire and promote their highest performing law enforcement professionals. In an effort to accomplish this, law enforcement organizations adopt extensive selection procedures that require applicants to complete multiple types of evaluation tools (e.g., multiple-choice test, structured interview, mental health assessment, background check). Regardless of the number of evaluation tools a law enforcement organization uses during the hiring or promotional process, structured interviews are frequently one of the primary tools used across all ranks.
Structured interviews are one of the most versatile tools available for hiring and promotional processes. They are frequently used by law enforcement agencies because structured interview questions can be developed to evaluate applicants’ responses to a variety of situations. Structured interview questions can be designed to evaluate how police officers handled specific situations in the past as well as how they would react or behave during situations they have not yet experienced on the job. Structured interviews can be developed as the sole selection tool for hiring decisions, or they can be combined with other evaluation tools for a more comprehensive picture across applicants.
Structured interviews are preferable to other selection tools because they are easily developed and reduce the need for applicants to possess other attributes unrelated to the job. For instance, multiple-choice tests typically require applicants to be able to read at a certain grade level. Applicants’ scores on a multiple-choice test can be influenced by their reading proficiency. Structured interviews are able to focus solely on the aspects important to the job and minimize the potential for other factors influencing the applicants’ ability to perform well.
Other Uses in Law Enforcement Environment
The adaptability and flexibility of a structured interview along with the consistency in evaluation is why structured interviews have become so widely used in various evaluation processes. Structured interviews are used not only for selection purposes but also to evaluate attitudes of individuals in numerous environments. A structured interview may be one of several tools used to make decisions about applicants, but when the structured interview is designed, administered, and evaluated properly, it can be the most informative tool utilized in law enforcement selection.
Structured interviews are also used in other law enforcement areas to gather information. Some examples include forensic interviewing of offenders, inmate interviews, and evaluating of police and correctional officers’ attitudes toward offenders. Clearly the adaptability of structured interviews allows law enforcement agencies to use them for a multitude of organizational evaluation initiatives beyond selection decisions.
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