The Panel Interview: A Review of Empirical Research and Guidelines for Practice

Abstract

After over 50 years of research, the panel interview remains an important yet controversial tool for personnel selection. Previous narrative and meta-analytic reviews have yielded conflicting results concerning its reliability and predictive validity. Furthermore, no review has focused exclusively on the panel interview. By examining the features and psychometric property of the panel interview, we can not only add to the scholarly literature but also determine important, research-based applications for the practitioner. We have derived an eight-step panel interview procedure from previous research. Utilizing this procedure as an organizing framework, this review highlights various features of the panel interview including: setting, structure and scoring anchors, question type, training, and rating combination method. Each of these features is discussed in terms of interview trends and in relation to reliability and validity. Practical implications and directions for future research also are addressed.