The Panel Interview

A panel interview is when you are interviewed by a group or panel of people.

You might for example find yourself being interviewed by perhaps the hiring manager and maybe someone from Human Resources and perhaps another manager or a member of the team you'd be working with if you got the job.

In this instance, these three people would interview you at one time rather than individually as is normally done.

Why would a company choose to conduct a panel interview?

The company might do this for time efficiency and simply feel that they can interview quicker this way than having you interview with people individually and end up answering the same questions three times rather than once.

They might have a company policy to conduct interviews this way.

Perhaps they just want to see how you react to being interviewed by a group of people and test your ability to react accordingly.

I have experienced a panel interview once and have also been on the other side of the table so to speak in another instance when I was part of the panel doing the interviewing.

As far as preparing for a panel interview, do the same preparation that you normally would for a "regular" interview.

When entering the interview, try to get the business card of everyone who is interviewing you. In stressful situation like this, it can be easy to forget names and it's best to be able to address each person by name when responding to their question.

Remember to offer a firm handshake to each interviewer, too.

When attending a panel interview, you need to remember your audience. Remember to give proper eye contact to each interviewer when you're answering questions and give each person the appropriate attention. You want to try to build up a good rapport with each person because you don't know if one person is more than the others, so don't assume anything. Treat each person equally.

If you find yourself being asked the same question over again, it might simply be a ploy to see if your answer is consistent and to see how you respond to having to answer the same question over again.