Interviewing: Any Questions?

1. Interviewing: Any Questions? Interviewing as a Communication Interaction October 26

2. 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

3. Types of Interviews • Counseling interviews • Employment interviews • Exit interviews • Grievance interviews • Performance appraisal interviews • Persuasive interviews • Group/panel interviews • Information gathering interviews

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

5. Types of Interview Questions • Open/Hypothetical Open questions • Closed questions • Probing questions • Loaded questions • Leading questions

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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, couldn’t explain problems on resume

10. 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

11. 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

12. Political Communication

13. Political communication as a subset of communication • It’s all about process • Three main actors—leaders, media, and the public • Involves the exchange and interpretation of messages • Broadly concerned with governance or public policy

14. 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 thesis—can’t understand politics without studying communication systems and messages

15. 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 setting—we don’t tell people what to think, we tell them what to think about!

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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.

21. Political Communication Quiz • There isn’t much useful information in campaigns; it’s 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.