Modern Interviews. Methods & How to Survive

Interviews can be a daunting process whether you're the interviewer or the interviewee... They take us out of our comfort zone, typically being much more formal than our typical daily lives. While the rest of the professional world has advanced into the information age, with computers taking centre stage and emails becoming increasingly informal, interviews are seemingly stuck in the dark ages, CVs are still printed on REAL paper and everyone involved sits down in the same room and shakes hands. While this form of interview has worked for years, there are some arguments that other methods may be more effective. In today's blog, we're talking about the issues with formal interviews and some of the more new age techniques.

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While a job interview is very formal, the actual job might not be. Both parties have their guards up and will find it very hard to be themselves, which can make it harder to get to know each other. Some people will interview well, but might not have the appropriate skills to perform the job properly, of course, the employer won't find this out until it's too late and they've been offered the job!

On the other hand, we have people that crack under interview conditions, however, have more than enough skill for the job and might be able to really add something to the team.

So, what can be done about this? Well, there are a number of new age interview methods, currently, a popular technique is to go to a coffee shop for an interview, this neutral & informal location allows participants to let their hair down, chill out and have a face to face chat without all the formal interview bits.

Another method that really interested us was a little tech project from Facebook Designers, Gabriel Valdivia & Charlie Deets. They've created Talk Turkey, a website that stages interviews in a similar way to a Facebook text chat. They've found that this means users are a lot more relaxed and talk very differently and potentially more genuinely.

This could be the future, what do you think about it? Would you perform better in a more relaxed interview? Or, do you strive in the formalities of a traditional interview? Let us know your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter!