Effective School Management

Planning the interview
The purpose of an interview is to find which of the shortlisted candidates
best fits our needs. We are not looking for the most likeable person or even
the one with the best track-record in his or her last job. First-class honours
graduates do not necessarily make the best teachers, and first-class teachers
do not necessarily make good school or college managers. Above all we want
to check on those ‘essential’ and ‘desirable’ criteria about which we are not
completely sure as a result of the application form and the references. Certain
of these criteria will be biographical or factual; others will be behavioural or
judgemental; most will be a mixture of the two, e.g. we may be able to judge
a person’s ‘drive’ by exploring in depth the results of some project he or she
has undertaken, asking about the problems that occurred and whether and
how these were dealt with and by whom.
Proficient interviewees will, if they can, steer us away from areas of
weakness. Inexperienced candidates, on the other hand, may not know how
to make the best of themselves at an interview. For both reasons it is essential

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RECRUITING, EMPLOYING, APPRAISING, DEVELOPING & DISMISSING STAFF
8 1
that we are systematic in listing the areas we wish to explore and thinking
about the questions we wish to ask. It is particularly important to think about
the sort of facts and interview reactions that will help us to come to a
meaningful conclusion on the behavioural/judgemental criteria.
It is essential that we make notes on each candidate as the interview
progresses and that we take time at the end of each interview to consolidate
these. The whole process is greatly helped if we prepare for each candidate a
selection sheet (preferably on A3 paper) similar to that shown in Figure 6.2.
The use and retention of such sheets can be valuable if any candidate alleges
discrimination on racial, sexual or other grounds.