Probing Macro-move

This macro-move is the highlight of the whole interview process, which thoroughly investigates and evaluates not only the applicants’ hard skills such as professional expertise, qualifications and background, but also their soft skills, such as personality and attitude toward the future job. In other words, this stage is designed to verify every aspect of the applicants from a holistic point of view in order to decide on their eligibility for the target position. For this reason, this macro-move takes the biggest portion of the interview process both in terms of quantity and quality. The probing macro-move is comprised of six micro- moves: educational qualifications, work experience, technical knowledge, career choices and

personal attributes.

First of all, educational qualifications is comprised of two steps, or education and

training. That is, no matter whether formal or non-formal, the applicant’s entire educational and qualifications background is included in this micro-move. The first step, education, which generally refers to formal education, mostly deals with academic information, such as university, major, degree and GPA. When discrepancies or deficiencies arise in the applicants’ educational records in terms of their career paths, the interviewers point these out and give the applicants an opportunity to offer rational justification. In terms of non-formal education, furthermore, various types of additional industrial training completed by the applicants are discussed with reference to the certificate titles, the content and length of the training, and the issuing authority.

The second micro-move of the probing stage is work experience. This stage includes all questions related to previous career experience, specifically, in the present case, in the field

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of ship repair. Two steps, career experience and remarkable achievements, are utilised in this move. To start with, general questions on the applicants’ career background, including the name of their previous workplace, department, position and main duties are usually asked initially. A wide range of follow-up questions, such as difficulties in previous workplaces, reasons for leaving the job, and deficiencies in their career history are then posed. In addition, in order to verify the candidates’ professional knowledge and ways of approaching certain duties given in the previous workplace, task-based questions are frequently asked in this step. As the second step, any remarkable achievements obtained during the course of the candidates’ career are also discussed, even though the direction of some questions within this step are not merely confined to the applicants’ past career perspectives, but rather to their whole lives.

The third micro-move is technical knowledge, in which interviewees try to verify the specific types of skills and knowledge the applicants possess in relation to the target field. Beyond the simple descriptions of personal job history solicited in the previous stage, the applicants’ skills and expertise developed and accumulated from their past work experiences are scrutinised more in detail, via the utilisation of three steps: relevant skills (any specific skills), functional knowledge and key competencies. To begin with, any types of specific skills required for the future workplace are highlighted and further tested for. For example, in the case of engineering staff, tests were conducted regarding how to use relevant computer software; applicants applying for administrative positions were required to demonstrate their language proficiency and reporting skills. In addition, the candidates’ functional knowledge relating to the target position was examined. Here, not only were highly technical questions relevant to the applicants’ target positions posed (from a theoretical to practical level), but also any lack of technical knowledge, once detected by the interviewers, was pointed out, and

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clarification requested. Finally, without posing a specific technical question, the interviewers sometimes requested that their applicants describe their key competencies, which can ‘contribute’ to the company and ‘convince’ the interviewers to select the applicants as future employees.

The next move is career choices, which examines what kinds of career expectations the applicants have toward the company and the position, how intense their interest is in the future jobs and duties, and finally how much definite and specific future career plans they had specifically for the growth of the company as a future working partner. In other words, from the fourth micro-move of the probing stage, or career choices, the interviewers start to investigate the applicants’ attitudes and strong desire for the future job, rather than their levels of professional expertise. For this reason, unlike other technical moves, in the study this stage was generally conducted by I1, who is a manager of the human resources department (25 out of 40 cases). Three steps are usually utilised in this move: job expectations, interests, and

long-term objectives. First of all, job expectations involves confirming that the applicants’ understanding of the target jobs (i.e. roles and duties) are well matched to the future work practices and environment offered by the company in order to identify their perception of the future roles (i.e. what to perform and how to achieve), and also to examine their passion for the position. For this purpose, descriptions of and reasons for applying to the target position were mainly requested. In addition, in our specific case, the applicants’ levels of interest in Oman and ODC were explored. The interviewers checked whether the applicants had a thorough comprehension of distinctive Omani cultural characteristics, and of ODC’s main business area, goals and missions, and further examined the applicants’ willingness to accept the new business environment by accommodating any changes coming from different business cultures and practices. Finally, their long-term objectives, mainly in terms of career

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development, were discussed. In this stage, any specific and goal-oriented future career plans the applicants had were first explored, and then what kinds of contributions they could make from these in terms of the future development of ODC were carefully considered.

As the final micro-move of this stage, personal attributes, which looks closely at the applicants’ personal aspects such as aptitude, characteristics and devotion to work, is utilised through three strategic steps: applicants’ self-motivation, attitude and characteristics. The first step, self-motivation, relates to the applicants’ dedication and determination with respect to the success of the future work, as expressed through the previous moves. To verify this in a holistic and comprehensive manner, several questions from different angles are posed in the following step, attitude. The questions in this step are mainly related to the applicants’ methodological approaches and attitudes towards diverse ranges of difficulties expected in the future multi-cultural business context. After a brief discussion on these issues, the applicants’ solutions and approaches to these are sought in terms of demonstrating their soft skills, such as leadership, decision making, stress tolerance and problem solving. The final step involves exploring the applicants’ characteristics in terms of how they will conduct their duties as future co-workers. Several direct (e.g. Tell me about your personality.) and indirect (e.g. hobbies, strong and weak points, and friends) questions are employed for this purpose.