Selection Interviewing Using Repertory Grid

How the Enquire Within interactive process uses the Repertory Grid interview in selection and employment interviewing. Enquire Within enables the user to measure the applicant's knowledge, attitudes, skills and motivations, using an in-depth interviewing technique which will measure the applicant's depth and range of understanding more thoroughly than any other interview process.

Enquire Within can be used in selection interviewing in one of two ways: as a test of knowledge, or as an in-depth behaviour-based interview.

As a Knowledge Test

Used as a knowledge test, Enquire Within enables you to elicit the applicant’s cognitive map about the topics in which he or she claims to have experience and expertise. The principle is very simple: the building-blocks of your Enquire Within session are taken from a sample of the subject-matter, and you build and test the map until the interviewee has exhausted the subject. This configuration effectively allows you to compare the applicant’s range and depth of knowledge with that of an expert.

As a Behaviour-Based Interview

Used as a behaviour-based interview and administered by an expert, Enquire Within is one of the most searching question-and-answer techniques you are likely to encounter. As with a standard behaviour-based interview, the subject-matter of the session is taken from critical incidents in the applicant’s experience, and these are probed in order to understand how the interviewee managed the relationships, what skills were involved, what learning they took from the situations, etc.

Caution, however: using Enquire Within for this purpose involves probing very deeply into your interviewee’s experience. Because this cannot be faked, the interviewee must be comfortable with the process and the interview should be administered by someone already skilled in conducting in-depth interviews. Although Enquire Within is not a personality test, if you are going to use it for this purpose you should apply to it the same organisational policies and disciplines which obtain when using psychological tests: i.e. save it for your short-listed applicants, be clear about what will happen to the data from all applicants, and restrict who may see the results.

Related Resources

Education and the Repertory Grid Interview
Training Needs and Performance Counselling
Using Personal Construct Theory in Vocational Guidance
Researching discrimination in selection for international management assignments: the role of repertory grid technique - Hilary Harris, Journal: Women in Management Review, 2001 Volume: 16 Issue: 3 Page: 118 - 126.
Abstract: Extensive literature exists into discrimination in selection in the fields of psychology, social psychology and sociology. This research focuses mainly on domestic appointments and does not consider the nature of selection for international appointments. Discusses the findings of a study into potential gender bias in international manager selection systems. In particular, it discusses the use of repertory grid technique to elicit the personal constructs of selectors for international appointments and to assess how these might influence the numbers of women entering international management positions.
Wikipedia: Interview

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