interview

1. Formal consultation or meeting for the purpose of ascertaining and evaluating the qualifications of a person, group of people, or company to fill a particular job situation.

2. Formal or informal meeting between two people or among a group of people for the purpose of obtaining information about something in particular. The interview is a successful tool in advertising research and may be conducted in any number of ways, including the depth interview and the focus group interview.

Conversation between two or more people for the purpose of yielding information for guidance, counseling, treatment, or employment.

n

1. a question-and-answer conference at which the parties concerned state the principles and facts regarding their relationship. In dental practice, this usually refers to the relationship between dentist and employee, and between dentist and patient. v 2. to query a potential employee.

by James G. Watt, 1981

James G. Watt was named a deputy assistant Secretary of the Interior in 1969, director of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation in 1972, commissioner of the Federal Power Commission in 1974, and vice chairman of the Commission in 1977. He met Ronald Reagan in December 1980 after having been proposed as the new Secretary of the Interior. "I outlined what I thought his administration should do." says Watt in the interview reprinted here. "He added to my proposals. So I know what he wants done, and I know how he wants it done." If the incoming President was satisfied with his new Interior boss, the confraternity of American environmentalists and conservationists was highly dissatisfied. They were almost unanimous in protesting the new policies put into effect by Watt, and heavy mail campaigns by various environmentalist organizations resulted in widespread disapproval of the situation at Interior. The energy, mining, and timber industries were, however, enthusiastic about what he was doing. Watt managed to hang on as Secretary of the Interior for three years. His views of his mandate are expressed in the following August 1981 interview.

Sen. Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming says you are "the first real Secretary of the Interior that the country has had in a couple of decades."

He's probably the wisest man on the Hill.

What are you doing differently that would prompt such a remark?

I have approached the management of our national resources with the realization that they are there to benefit Americans in all walks of life, and so I have implemented some policies that allow energy development, mineral extraction, grazing and timber cutting as well as preservation and recreation.

In the past, the state of Wyoming, as well as the other states, had just been locked up to economic development and set aside for a few backpackers rather than the rest of us who might want to use a four-wheeler or go horseback riding or develop some energy.

We intend to see that these public lands, which amount to one third of the nation-768 million acres, are used for all Americans. Everybody has a right to benefit from these lands.

You have mentioned four corner-stones for Reagan administration conservation policy. What are they?

In addressing the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, I listed these points.

First, America must have a sound economy if it is to be a good steward of its fish and wildlife, its parks and all its natural resources.

Second, America must have orderly development of its vast energy resources to avert a crisis development, which could be catastrophic to the environment.

Third, America's resources were put here for the enjoyment and use of people, now and in the future, and should not be denied to the people by elitist groups.

Fourth, America has the expertise to manage and use resources wisely, and much of that expertise is in state government and in the private sector.

All actions President Reagan or I have taken that affect conservation grow out of those principles.

Critics, such as California Sen. Alan Cranston, say you have gone beyond the administration's position on the environment.

I'm fortunate in that I am probably the first Secretary of the Interior to work for a President who understands the Department of the Interior.

President Reagan, while serving as governor of California for eight years, had to deal with the department on a daily basis. More than 40 percent of California is owned by the federal government and subject to the dictates and the reactions of the Secretary of the Interior.

So when we're dealing with environmental issues, he has a keen awareness. He understands the mission of the department. In December I outlined what I thought his administration should do. He added to my proposals. So I know what he wants done, and I know how he wants it done. We are doing it, and our department has had full support.

How have the career employes reacted?

In many instances, I had to turn the bureaucracy 180 degrees to make major changes in the direction they were marching. I yelled out some orders. I was harsh in some instances, but I got their attention.

What surprised all of us was how quickly they came around. We've made great strides. We're 8 to 10 months ahead of our own schedule. The career government employees have been just phenomenal.

What do you consider your major accomplishments in your seven months in office?

I have focused Congress' attention on the need to restore the National Park System to its proper shape; we have committed ourselves to a billion-dollar program on that, and Congress is supporting us enthusiastically.

I have opened for energy exploration and development lands that had been locked up for 10 to 15 years in an unreasonable manner.

We have stimulated the hard-rock mining industry and given it hope that there is a future for domestic mining in America.

We have focused attention on the states' role in land-use planning, in providing recreational opportunities for their citizens, and we have helped them realize that they must expand the opportunities for such recreation, that it is not the role of the federal government.

Is it true that, in comparison with Congress, you really have little authority to make drastic changes in managing public lands?

When [former Secretary of the Interior Cecil D.] Andrus left, he told The New York Times it didn't make any difference who was going to be named Secretary of the Interior because there wasn't anything that a Secretary could really change. Andrus said that was because of the cumbersome bureaucracy and the special-interest groups.

Now I have come in, and within 30 days the Sierra Club started its drive to run me out of here because I'd made too many changes. And the National Wildlife Federation is concerned that I'm bringing about too much change.

I am trying to bring about change and I'm trying to do it in an aggressive way that will be filled with common sense and a balanced perspective.

So how much discretion is there? In some people's minds, not very much; in others', way too much.

The responsibilities of the Secretary of the Interior seem to be in conflict. On the one hand, the Secretary is charged with preserving the land, and on the other he is responsible for making these lands productive.

True, there is an absolute conflict built into the Department of the Interior. I am called, on one hand, the chief environmental officer for the nation, and the special-interest groups refuse to look at anything else.

I suppose I might also be called the chief miner on Department of the Interior lands, the chief harvester of timber, the chief Indian. And these missions, outlined by statute, are contradictory in many instances.

To the various special-interest groups, the Secretary has a statutory duty to do A, B and C, but they refuse to look at any of the other responsibilities of the office.

That's why I'm so critical of the narrow special-interest groups on both the development and the preservation sides. I must search for balance. Yet, if I do an effective job, I will receive criticism at different times from the different groups.

How do your definitions of "national need" and "national interests," when applied to the parks and wilderness areas, differ from environmentalists' definitions?

I believe that these lands need to be primarily preserved in their natural state so they can be used by us and by many generations yet to come, but I believe-and here's where the difference comes-that they must be made available in that natural state to the handicapped, to the family, to the camper, to the older couple, to the young couple with not so much money and to the children.

I do not think they ought to be set aside for just the few backpackers who are rugged enough and affluent enough and have enough time.

You have asked that instead of buying more parkland, money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund be spent on fixing up present parks. Critics say that because the parks are deteriorating from overuse, more parkland should be purchased. How do you respond?

Right now, the system is skewed to acquiring more and not taking care of what we have. We're changing that. We have increased by 225 percent the money to be used for restoration.

I am critical of the special-interest groups for encouraging department policies that permit deterioration of our park system. I don't think we can afford to lose what we have.

What is needed most is to build proper sewage treatment facilities. That means increasing drinking water supplies, building proper roads, restoring buildings that are deteriorating just through age, replacing tunnels, repairing what needs repairing.

Most of that has nothing to do with use, it has to do with neglect. The greed of those who want to expand the federal estate and take private property off the tax rolls was such that money had been flowing to further acquisition rather than restoration.

So you want a change in the law?

We think good stewardship is taking care of what we have, and so I asked for a change in the law regarding the use of the fund's money. Government officials ought to be held accountable for their actions. You take a government employee and give him hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire land, but then you do not expect him to exercise any judgment on acquisition and development.

What does he do? He just does what he is told-acquire, acquire, acquire. Then he doesn't have to take care of it because he doesn't have any money left to do so. The entire procedure requires no value judgments.

That's not good stewardship. A responsible government decision maker should determine whether he needs to maintain what he has or can afford to take more.

Your critics also say you intend to open up wilderness areas and national parks to timber and mining companies, to oil and gas exploration. Aren't some of these wilderness areas, parks and wildlife refuges exempt from such multiple use?

Yes they are. And the critics have fabricated the story in an effort to raise dollars. We have never suggested, nor would we, that there would be mining or timbering or drilling in parks unless Congress has dictated it. For those people to try to confuse the public is unfair. I have never suggested those things, never will-and it will never happen. The law protects the parks, as it should, and we're not asking that the law be changed.

You speak of inventorying all public lands to determine the best uses for them. Is this a policy you initiated?

Congress has repeatedly asked for an inventory, and it just has not been effectively done. Congress has done some of the inventorying itself by setting aside a national park and saying that is its highest use; there is no going back to see what other values are there, since Congress has already determined that.

But we ought to look at the millions and millions of acres that we do need to know the values of. For example, BLM-the Bureau of Land Management-has 341 million acres to manage. That's in addition to the more than 190 million National Forest Service acres and the 156 million acres set aside for parks and wildlife refuges.

Now the 341 million acres managed by BLM-an area twice the size of Texas-is land that has a variety of values. We really have not ever inventoried those lands. We should know what strategic minerals they hold.

For example, the United States is critically dependent on foreign sources for 22 of the 36 most needed strategic minerals. At the moment, less than one half of 1 percent of our lands is subject to mining. I don't think that is an excessive amount, but I do think we'd better determine what minerals we have in this country.

Do we have the capability to be independent, or are we vulnerable to a natural resource war? I think we're vulnerable today. We'd better correct that.

You've proposed bringing the private sector more into the operation of the parks-concessionaires, for example. Some say that plan will commercialize and ruin the parks.

The critics continue, by design, to ignore facts. The private enterpreneur had been invited into the national parks long before there was a National Park Service. At our major parks, visitors' services, for the most part, have always been provided by concessionaires. And they should be.

The question is: Can government or the private sector provide better eating facilities, sleeping accommodations and campground facilities? I have faith that the private sector can. There are not sufficient taxpayer dollars to meet the growing needs of the parks, and I think we ought to invite the private sector in and let it do the job and do it properly.

The National Park Service, you have said, should get out of the business of managing urban parks. Will local communities be able to finance and manage these parks if the Park Service withdraws?

First, I have not proposed turning any national parks over to city or local government. There is no park "hit list." I have raised the question, however, of just how far the federal government should go in purchasing and managing parks or playgrounds.

Until relatively recently, local parks and playgrounds were the province of municipal and county governments. Tradition and law required that national parks be areas of significant national interest-places you or I might drive a couple hundred miles to visit.

Now, some mayors, some congressmen think the federal government should also pick up the tab for parks that have, at best, questionable national significance. If the people in New York City don't want to pay for their local parks, why should the people of Denver have to foot the bill-or vice versa? This debate has been going on for decades in the National Park Service. I just laid the issue on the table so there could be some frank discussion. I have not set any time frame.

Getting back to the land's resources, it has been charged that you are being shortsighted, that your policies risk spoiling our environment.

Every decision I have made has been, I feel, for the long-term benefit of the environment. I've been concerned for a long time that we do not properly manage our public lands, and that includes our energy resources-in the West, particularly. The West has 90 percent of the nation's uranium, 80 percent of its coal and so on. It can become the most energy-productive area of the world, bar none; oil shale, coal, uranium, oil and gas. There's enough energy there to meet America's needs for thousands of years.

Enough to solve the energy crisis?

We do not have an energy crisis; we have a crisis in government management. If we do not allow the private marketplace to go in and develop those energy sources in a systematic, methodical and environmentally sensitive way, we will create such a political and economic crisis in America that Washington will nationalize the industries and attack our energy-rich West in such a manner as to destroy the ecology, primarily because it will decide it must get to that energy to heat the homes of the Northeast and keep the wheels of industry going in the Midwest.

And that we cannot afford.

So to protect the environment, we must develop our energy in an orderly and environmentally sensitive way. We have not done that in recent years. In fact, to the contrary, we have prohibited it. That's one of the things I have changed.

For a nation to be great, it must manage properly both its human resources and its natural resources. America is blessed with both-an abundance of talented human resources and an abundance of natural resources.

If we will manage these resources for the benefit of America, we can be a great, great nation.

Would you spell out your views on offshore oil drilling in general and the controversial leasing of drilling sites off Northern California in particular?

One of our important and thus far underdeveloped energy resources lies under our territorial waters. We have explored only a small percentage of the outer continental shelf under federal jurisdiction. The OCS is not the only solution to our energy crisis, but it is an extremely important element.

The state of California has allowed the drilling of 3,000 wells in state waters, and the federal government has already permitted the drilling of more than 500 wells on the OCS off California. So what we are talking about is simply extending a program already in operation. However, we have decided to defer possible offshore Northern California leasing pending the outcome of our appeal of a recent federal court decision.

U.S. offshore drilling has an outstanding environmental record. We are convinced that OCS development, on balance, is far less risky for the environment than the alternatives. A great deal of study, thought and care has gone into the decision-making process for all OCS decisions.

You have announced that the department intends to lease I billion acres over the next five years. How can the oil and gas companies, which are already drilling at a high rate, explore that many acres?

Industry isn't going to rush out and explore a billion acres in the next five years-they know that and I know that. What we are offering is a chance for industry to go after gas and oil in areas where industry believes gas and oil to be. Some companies have quibbled with my proposal, but the industry as a whole supports it. I think the oil industry will meet this challenge. The only way we as a nation can lose is by offering too little, not too much.

Many statements that have raised the hackles of environmentalists have been attributed to James Watt. Are the media reporting accurately?

I am surprised that the media can be manipulated repeatedly by narrow special-interest groups. Most of what has been attributed to me was made up by a critic and then repeated by the press.

Now, I have found a great dichotomy between the reporters and the editorial writers. The reporters frequently call to check out something to see whether there is some truth to it. But it seems that a search for truth doesn't slow up editorial writers much.

A recent National Wildlife Federation survey measured members' opinions of your environmental priorities. The results were used to support calls for your resignation. Yet to one question, 44 percent of the respondents answered that they didn't know enough about your policies to make a judgment. What did you think of the survey?

I looked at one of the questions, and it gave me four alternative answers. Answer A was so reasonable and well written and understandable that, of course, I selected it. The other three answers were really off the wall. It turned out 95 percent of the respondents also picked choice A.

Choice B was the answer they had attributed to me, which was ridiculous and totally unfair. By voting the way I did on that one question, I was voting, I learned, to force the resignation of Jim Watt as Secretary of the Interior.

If the rest of the poll was similar to what I saw in that one question I answered, it was so rigged and unfair that it wasn't worth studying. I dismissed it entirely.

Have you solicited views from the environmentalists' side? Do you ever invite them to your regular breakfast sessions?

Yes, they've all been in-and as they left, they called news conferences to denounce us.

Politics is often called a game of compromise. You've been accused of not compromising on issues, of following the letter of the law. Are you inflexible?

We've seen parks deteriorating, we've seen the grazing lands threatened, we've seen our economy suffer double-digit inflation, we've seen economic development brought to a halt by poor decisions coming out of the Department of the Interior.

When I came here, the pendulum was swinging way out in left field. I've got to bring it into the middle, into mainline America.

And so I am being tough-and I am not compromising with those who seek to block economic activity. I am going to bring about a commonsense approach, which is incorporated into the law, to see that these resources are managed for the benefit of all Americans, not just for the select few.

Source
Nation's Business, September 1981.

Quotes
"A black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple." — James Watt, flippant description of the balance reflected in a coal-leasing advisory panel he had appointed; the remark, widely reported, led to his resignation on October 9, 1983.

People seek interviews with their bank manager or their doctor, they are interviewed for a job or for promotion, and at work they may have an annual 'appraisal interview'. Some are interviewed as they apply for Social Security or other benefits, and others may be interviewed by a journalist or a market researcher.

These different encounters all have as defining characteristics a certain formality and an asymmetry. Participants' roles are specified, in that one person is the interviewer and the other is the interviewee (although in practice more than two people may be involved) and each has a fairly clear idea of the type of behaviour which is expected. The objective is for the interviewer to obtain and interpret information from the interviewee in order to make a decision or take some action.

Let us look particularly at interviews in personnel selection, where an official of an organization has to decide which candidate to select for a job from among a number of applicants. Such interviews are often criticized on the grounds that different interviewers can reach different conclusions about the same candidate, and a number of experiments have examined the ways in which interviewers can be 'calibrated' so that they reliably form similar impressions. One approach has varied the degree of structure imposed upon the interview, in terms of the requirement to obtain certain kinds of information and to draw inferences only about pre-specified attributes or likely behaviours. Results indicate that increased structure yields significantly greater uniformity between interviewers. Similar outcomes can be achieved through training schemes which aim to make interviewers aware of possible biases and which stress the need to identify goals and important issues in advance. For example, the 'seven-point plan' encourages interviewers to define job requirements carefully and to obtain information about candidates in terms of physique, intelligence, aptitude, attainments, interests, disposition, and circumstances.

Although reliability can be enhanced in these ways, there remains the question whether interviewers can validly predict subsequent work behaviour. A major research problem is the difficulty of establishing acceptable measures of 'good' or 'bad' behaviour in an occupational role. Limited measures of skilled performance or of output levels may be available for some manual jobs, but professional and managerial work is much less open to quantification, and it is in those areas that interviews are particularly widespread. This problem, of adequately measuring the behaviour we wish to predict, is endemic in all areas of personnel selection, and is often referred to as 'the criterion problem'.

However, despite the commonly expressed doubts, selection interviews are here to stay, if for no other reason than that they provide an opportunity for the candidate to ask his own questions and to reach his own conclusions about a potential employer. The interpersonal processes at work during an interview are subtle, complex, and fascinating. Consider the ways in which an interviewer will search for and integrate information about the applicant. Research has established clearly that people form impressions of each other through the application of previously established expectancies or 'inference rules'. Evidence that a person has a certain characteristic (anxiousness in the interview situation, for example) sets up a network of inferences about other characteristics. These networks are sometimes referred to as 'implicit theories of personality', and perceivers apply their own implicit theories to even the most limited pieces of evidence. Indeed, some people take pride in 'summing him up as soon as he comes through the door', whereas others may devote their energies to fighting a similar form of stereotyped perception, where extensive inferences are drawn from single cues such as 'black', 'female', or 'handicapped'. In general terms, manifested features have been found to make their greatest impact during short encounters, when other evidence is meagre. Thus many perceivers initially take the wearing of spectacles to imply intelligence and thoughtfulness (see halo effect). Conventional wisdom has it that 'first impressions count', and research has looked in detail at this question. It seems that the initial impression is tested through subsequent investigation. However, there is often a predisposition in an interviewer to obtain negative information, material which suggests that the candidate should not be selected. This is understandable in the light of the interviewer's regular need to reject most of the applicants, but it is important for the 'first impressions count' thesis. This needs to be refined to suggest that an early negative impression is readily reached and is difficult to change, whereas an early positive impression is less easily made and is liable to be overridden if negative evidence becomes available subsequently.

One interesting research finding bears upon this issue. There is typically a significant positive correlation between the proportion of time during which the interviewer talks and the probability that a candidate will be offered the job. This may be interpreted in terms of an early implicit decision by an interviewer which tends to make later questioning redundant and perhaps suggests that the desirable candidate should be encouraged through conversation to maintain his interest in the vacancy.

The skills of interviewing extend to coordinating the interaction through verbal and non-verbal cues at the same time as gaining and integrating a variety of items of information. Recent research has placed emphasis on the non-verbal cues which contribute to impression formation and management: they may be relatively unchanging — as with general appearance, clothes, facial expression, and so on — or they may be dynamic — as in eye contact, bodily movements, or loudness of speech.

How can people learn to be good interviewers? We all have relevant experience, talking with and acquiring information from others, and there is a tendency to feel that we are quite competent. But experience without detailed feedback is often of limited value: we need to learn with some precision about the effects of our actions and impressions so that we can improve upon them. This requirement has been the basis of recent experiments in interviewer training, and powerful procedures are now available. These have as their core the use of feedback about performance, often through the replay of videotaped practice sessions. In this way, trainees are able to chart and improve their performance over a series of practice interviews, assisted both by their tutors and by their fellow trainees. Behaviour category systems are often applied to generate profiles of an interviewer's style in a way that points up strong and weak points, providing in a striking manner the feedback that is necessary for learning.

(Published 1987)

— Peter B. Warr

Bibliography
• Anstey, E. (1977). An Introduction to Selection Interviewing.
• Argyle, M. (1973). Social Encounters: Readings in Social Interaction.
• Mackensie D. D., and McDonnell, P. (1975). How to Interview.
• Sidney, E., Brown, M., and Argyle, M. (1973). Skills with People: A Guide for Managers.

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IN BRIEF: A meeting of one person with another to talk about something.

I’m notorious for giving a bad interview. I’m an actor and I can’t help but feel I’m boring when I’m on as myself. — Rock Hudson (1925-1985), U.S. screen actor.

Quotes:

"The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!" - Roland Barthes

"Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are." - Oscar Wilde

"The media no longer ask those who know something to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it." - Serge Daney

"I'm notorious for giving a bad interview. I'm an actor and I can't help but feel I'm boring when I'm on as myself." - Rock Hudson

"The best interviews -- like the best biographies -- should sing the strangeness and variety of the human race." - Lynn Barber

"It rots a writer's brain, it cretinises you. You say the same thing again and again, and when you do that happily you're well on the way to being a cretin. Or a politician." - John Updike

See more famous quotes about Interviews

Facing an interview in a dream carries the same connotations of anxiety as dreams about exam taking. The dreamer may feel that he or she is being judged by others or by herself.

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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - interview, møde, samtale
v. tr. - interviewe, udspørge, afhøre, have samtale med
v. intr. - foretage et interview, interviewe, udspørge

Nederlands (Dutch)
interview, (persoonlijk) onderhoud, sollicitatiegesprek, interviewen, spreken met, sollicitatiegesprek afnemen

Français (French)
n. - entretien, (Journ) interview
v. tr. - faire passer un entretien à (un candidat), convoquer (qn) pour un entretien, (Journ) interviewer, interroger (par la police)
v. intr. - passer un entretien, faire passer des entretiens, (Journ, TV) interviewer

Deutsch (German)
n. - Interview, Gespräch, Vorstellungsgespräch
v. - interviewen, Vorstellungsgespräch führen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (δημόσια) συνέντευξη, συνάντηση, ραντεβού (για δουλειά)
v. - παίρνω συνέντευξη από

Italiano (Italian)
intervistare, intervista, intervista (di lavoro)

Português (Portuguese)
n. - entrevista (f)
v. - entrevistar

Русский (Russian)
интервью, беседа, интервьюировать, брать интервью, проводить беседу

Español (Spanish)
n. - entrevista, interviú, entrevista de empleo
v. tr. - entrevistar
v. intr. - entrevistarse con

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - intervju, samtal, sammanträffande
v. - ha ett samtal med, intervjua

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
面谈, 接见, 访问, 会见, 面试

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 面談, 接見, 訪問
v. tr. - 接見, 會見
v. intr. - 面談, 面試

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 회견, (신문기자의)방문면담
v. tr. - ~와 회견하다, 방문하여 의견을 묻다
v. intr. - 회견하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 会見, インタビュー, 面接, 会談, 取材訪問, 会見記
v. - と面接する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مقابله, حديث صحفي (فعل) يجري مقابله‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮ראיון‬
v. tr. - ‮ראיין‬
v. intr. - ‮השתתף בריאיון‬

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