What Is a Group Interview and How Can I Prepare for It?

The concept of the Group Interview, sometimes referred to as the Mass Interview, was foreign to me until the 1990s. I dropped into a few of these in order to see how they operated and to determine if any real employment was at stake and on offer. I even found a summer job.

In the 2010s, the group interview is more common place, more efficiently operated, with a usual result that a selection of a smaller group of job candidates occurs for future one-on-one interviewing with a Human Resources representative - or another panel of company management types.

In the 1990s, the group interviews I observed involved 1) telephone interviewing and marketing, 2) door-to-door sales, and 3) door-hanger ad distribution positions. In each case, I answered a newspaper ad and was invited to the interview, not expecting a group setting. In a single conference room were gathered from a dozen to 30 job candidates and 3-4 company representatives each time. One company staff person began the interview with an explanation of the product or service it involved and allowed disinterested parties to leave, narrowing the field. This saved much interview time and staff time/cost as compared to an 8-hour day of panel interviews of job candidates singly at 30 minutes each.

Another company representative then stood and delivered a presentation of information about the job, usually including the rate of pay - or investment required - how long it would take to receive payment, work hours, benefits or none, and the like. Parties that had become disinterested at that point could leave. Sometimes, they got up and walked out in the middle of this chunk of information.

A third phase of the interview often included a third staff person that administered a 10-problem math quiz and/or a 5- to 10-question quiz on alphabetizing, ordering addresses, grammar, or whatever was related to the job on offer. A break was given at this point, staff people marked the quizzes and job candidates scoring within the required company criteria percentages were asked to stay for the remainder of the interview.

For ad distribution, an HR representative asked the remaining job seekers to present their IDs and other required documentation and to fill out personnel and employment forms, because they were hired.

For door-to-door sales, no paperwork was filled out, the job candidates were asked to sign an affidavit of receipt for items in a box that they were to hawk in an assigned neighborhood, and sent out to sell. Most of them did not open their boxes to match the contents with their signed affidavits. I have a feeling the company made more on requiring the sales force to pay for "lost merchandise" than in actual sales. Smelling something decidedly non-kosher in this business, I passed on signing the affidavit and going out to sell. This caused a rather loud commotion from the company people, who insisted I sign and deliver - or sell, actually; or pay for missing merchandise. This development was not only non-kosher, but decidedly desperate. I said, "Some other time, maybe." and left. I am always comforted by the notion that in a high sales environment, I am safe as long as I sign nothing and have no credit card or money in my pocket. Be alert for this type of group interview, which takes advantage of the unemployed and individuals subsisting on fixed lower incomes.

For one telephone interviewing position involving health related research, the fourth phase of the group interview was some practice interviewing from scripts with company staff serving as interviewees; and the best job candidates were hired based on speaking ability, rapport, and the ability to illicit meaningful answers to all the questions. I worked this job for a summer season and the experience helped me quite a bit with similar work done in research for my preventive medicine studies.

The group interview has become more sophisticated in the 2010s. Job candidates receive email invitations to attend and interview in which a panel of company representatives will be presenting information about the company. Candidates will introduce themselves to the group and each other, with the eyes of the panel on each one from the time they approach the doorway of the conference room. Posture, facial expression, gait, mannerisms, method of approaching others, ways of accepting interactions, communications/language capacities (including vocabulary), speaking in public, appearance of handshakes, attire, grooming - all such aspects of each individuals will be scrutinized. Leadership, management, and follower capacities will show up from the start.

The panel will speak individuals, presenting information and perhaps asking questions. Therefore, it is vital that candidates research the company and the industry in which it operates as fully as possible in order to be able to use this information and answer questions. Thus, a goal of the interview is to see which candidates know the most information and which can use that information in an applied manner. This will not be a simple recitation, but an application of knowledge to another question and coming up with a solution. Memorization alone will not help.

At some point, many of these interviews divide the job candidates into teams to tackle some small team assignment - like The Apprentice on a smaller scale. Each team makes a presentation, has a short Q & A session from panel and other teams, and finally evaluates themselves as a team and presents the evaluation. The process can seem tedious or energizing and the panel will be looking for those that are energized and not afraid to make mistakes and learn from that data.

At the end of the group interview, job candiates will likely be dismissed and those chosen for an in-depth personal interview will be contacted by mail or email notification. Those missing this first cut should also be politely notified as well, perhaps with suggestions for improvement.