A friend of mine once had a curious experience at a job interview. Excited about the possible position, she arrived five minutes early and was immediately ushered into the interview room by the receptionist. Following an amicable discussion with a panel of interviewers, she was offered the job. Afterwards, one of the interviewers remarked how impressed she was that my friend could be so composed after showing up 25 minutes late for the interview. As it turned out, my friend had been told the wrong start time by half an hour. She remained composed because she didn’t know she was late. My friend isn’t the type of person who would have remained cool if she had known she was late, but the interviewers reached the opposite conclusion. Of course, they could have also concluded that her calmness showed disrespect. Either way, they would have been wrong to draw conclusions about her future performance in her work based on her behaviour at the interview. In this case, the outcome of the interview was beneficial for the applicant. But it doesn’t have to end that way.
This is a widespread problem. Employers like to use free-form, unstructured interviews to “get to know” a job candidate. Such interviews are also increasingly popular with admissions officers at universities. But, as in my friend’s case, interviewers typically form strong but unwarranted impressions.
One way to change this is to develop an interview protocol based on a careful analysis of what is being looked for in the candidate. Interviews should be structured so that all candidates receive the same questions, a procedure which makes interviews more reliable and more predictive of job success. The employer should also make sure to include a number of questions which test job-related skills.

adapted from www.nytimes.com; www.theguardian.com