Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Participants’ Experience and Feedback from the Education Employment Interviews

The employment of teachers in Iran’s public education system is mainly performed in two main ways: first, the selection of volunteers through the national entrance exam for admission to teacher education universities. The second method is by a call for employment for graduates from different universities through an employment test. In both of these cases, selection interviews are conducted after a written exam. Despite the widespread annual use of interviewing to recruit required teachers, so far the response of admitted or failed applicants and the consequences and shortcomings of interviews have not been researched or reported. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate teachers’ experiences of job interviews and to identify their related problems in Iran’s public education system.

A mixed-method research design was adopted. The potential contributors were teachers who had an experience in job interviews. In the qualitative part, 41 teachers were purposively selected, observing and with maximum diversity, to participate in a semi-structured interview protocol.

Data analysis based on phenomenography method demonstrated that the participants’ experiences of job interview process in Iran’s education system can be described in five different patterns: Interview as headhunting tool for the selection of qualified applicants. Interview as access to information, by which the perspective of the prospective employer and necessary information are sought by a purposeful conversation. Interview as glass wall which is mostly considered to be an apparent tool that sometimes does not harm the organization, if not conducted. Interview as a screening tool for removing some of the applicants from the final recruitment stage. And finally interview as the beginning of teacher applicants’ socialization process which is used for simplification of teacher applicants’ compatibility with the education system. In the quantitative part, 400 teachers were selected by stratified random sampling in order to fill the 38 items questionnaire. Results of demonstrated that the problems of job interviews could be categorized into five major domains including, 1) problems related to interviewees 2) perceptual errors 3) psychometric indexes 4) procedural problems and 5) an authoritarian approach in the interview process. From the of applicants’ viewpoints, problems related to interviewees and perceptual errors were the most significant issues of education job interviews.

The finding leads us to the point that interview is part of the employment process, in which human interaction reaches its climax, and is highly susceptible to biases. The categories can be related to the theories proposed in the research literature. For example, the concept of interview as socialization was justified by the theory of organizational attraction. It seems that the use of the interview approach as socialization is likely to ensure the similarity of the recruited peoples’ values to the value of educational policymakers. Some participants had experienced the interview as a recursive approach. The important thing is to deal with those who have not been accepted. These people should not be ignored; proper treatment with them is important in shaping the public image of the organization. The findings indicated that some contributors had experienced interviews as a means of accessing information about the organization they were seeking to hire. Hence, understanding interviews requires a mix of interviewing interviewees and recruitment candidates. A detailed description of the experiences of recruitment interviews by contributors can enhance our understanding of the processes involved in organizational and organizational engagement, as well as raising our awareness of potential discrimination and biases. This study is a good starting point for gaining a better understanding of the recruitment process in education. Therefore, it is suggested that educational policy makers provide specific training programs for interviewers before conducting recruitment interviews.