The article summary highlights the fast track to interviewing well and I’ve added my take and a bit more on each (in bold).  Dive into article for more!

1. Prior to conducting the interview, identify what skills the candidate must have versus what skills can be taught on the job – This preparatory step is hugely important, know what you’re hiring for and prepare questions accordingly, ideally around skills and abilities you aren’t already assessing with other parts of your hiring process (like PXT Select)
   
2. Make sure your questions prompt candidates to share specific examples – Don’t settle for less, help folks tell you what they’ve actually done that’s relevant.  This is the information you need to make the most of the interview.
   
3. Practice with a peer beforehand, and ask them to give you difficult answers so you can navigate unexpected situations – In support of the prior point, you should also work to get comfortable with prompting folks to recount their past experiences and substantiate them. Your interview shouldn’t be a trick process, you want to know what a candidate has done – past performance is often the best predictor of future performance.
4. Set a positive tone at the start of the interview by asking the candidate about their day – Don’t underestimate preparing to build some rapport if you’re new to this, you’re being interviewed as well!
   
5. Take notes, don’t rely on your memory, especially if you’re interviewing multiple people – Ideally, you should also be using anchored rating scales relevant to each question and the skill(s) you’re seeking to assess with it.  Anchored scales are numeric scales where each scale point is clearly defined for each skill.  This takes some prework, but goes a long way to pushing back on unintended biases and, ultimately, determining legitimate differences in interviewed applicants.
6. Evaluate the candidate — and your own experience conducting the interview. – The aforementioned anchored rating scales and your notes (and those of other interviewers) are key!  Allow an anonymized channel (like a simple link to a Google form you’ve prepared) for the candidate to report back on their experience with you and your organization throughout the interview and hiring process.  Act on what you receive to improve your process and applicant reactions.
   

You’ve got this!

1. Misfit Matters: A Re-Examination of Interest Fit and Job Satisfaction. Justin Wiegand, Fritz Drasgow, and James Rounds. Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Performance credits:

• Poured: Kirsten Wiegand (Background Vocals)
• Breath: Caleb Plattner (Piano, Arrangement), Kirsten Wiegand (Background Vocals)
• Fame Name: Vasil Tzvetkov (Piano, Organ), Mark Miller (Bass), Drew Dilday (Electric Guitar)

Happy Turking friends!

1. First things first, you’ll need generate and save a random code somewhere your survey (I recommend adding this at the end).
   1. Create an “Equation” type question in LimeSurvey.  LimeSurvey has a built in random number generator that you will call on using this question type.
   2. To implement and save a random code made up of four digits (1000-9999), two letters (lower case or capital), and finally one additional digit (all settings you can change), copy/paste the following text into the “Equation” style question:
      1. Under “Code” (i.e., the question title), enter “PIN” (you can change this to any name you’d like as long as you update the question syntax accordingly).
      2. Under “Question”, enter “{if(is_empty(PIN), join(rand(1000,9999), substr(“abcdefghijkmnpqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ”, -rand(1,48),1),substr(“abcdefghijkmnpqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ”, -rand(1,48),1),(SAVEDID)),PIN)}”.
   3. Under advanced settings, turn “Always hide this question” to “On” as respondents do not need to see the code in real time.
2. You now have a random code (named “PIN”) generated and saved for survey responses.  The next step is to collect information that will be used to contact respondents’ supervisors, spouses, or any other survey dyad.  To do this, create three LimeSurvey questions following the “PIN” question in the prior step (order matters!).  The three question codes, types, text, answers, and necessary survey logic/validation follow (feel free to customize to your liking).  Take note of the Question Group IDs (if you use question groups) and Question IDs of the Name and Email questions as you will call on these later (as “[GroupID]” and “[QuestionID]” respectively).
   1. Permission
      1. Question Type:  List (radio)
      2. Question Text:  “Do we have permission to contact your [supervisor, spouse, etc.] to complete a follow-up survey?” [Expand with specifics regarding the additional survey and protections you will implement to safe guard respondents’ personal information]
      3. Answers:  “Yes” (Code: “per01”) and “No” (Code: “per02”)
   2. Name
      1. Question Type:  Multiple short text
      2. Question Text:  “Please provide your first and last name:”
      3. Subquestions:
         1. “First” (Code: “name01”) and “Last” (Code: “name02”)
      4. Survey Logic to only display this question if permission is granted (enter the following under “Relevance equation”):  ((Permission.NAOK == “per01”))
   3. Email
      1. Question Type:  Short free text
      2. Question Text:  “Please provide your [direct supervisor’s, spouse’s, etc.] email address:” [Expand with specifics regarding data integrity that you will implement.  For example, “Do not complete the supervisor survey yourself. Only supervisors completing surveys from verified work email addresses and from unique locations qualify.”]
      3. Enter the following under “Validation” to require an email address:  “/^(\w[-._+\w]*\w@
      4. Survey Logic to only display this question if permission is granted (enter the following under “Relevance equation”):  ((Permission.NAOK == “per01”))
3. You now have everything needed to contact supervisors (or other linked respondents).  You can use LimeSurvey Expression Manager syntax to call on the variables you created and LimeSurvey’s built-in notification feature to push out the linking survey email as respondents finish their survey.  Do this as follows:
   1. Under “Surveys” click to select your survey (note the survey ID listed after your survey name). You will insert this where the template below calls for [SurveyID].
   2. Under the “Survey properties” drop down menu, select “Email templates”
   3. Now select “Detailed admin notification” (“Basic admin notification” could also be used).
   4. Craft the email you plan to have pushed out, calling on your previously selected variables.  Below is a template you can modify:
      1. Subject:
         1. “[Your institution] Research for {INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID][name01} {INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID]name02}
      2. Body:
         1. “Dear [supervisor, spouse, etc.] of {INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID]name01} {INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID]name02},{INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID]name01} is participating in research on [topic] being conducted at [your institution].  As his/her [supervisor, spouse, etc.] we would like your help completing a brief survey.  [Additional text/protections as necessary.  For example, “Please know that your response will be entirely confidential and your email address will not be kept on file.  We will not contact you again.”]To provide your response, please visit this link [hyperlink to your second survey].  To link your response with {INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID]name01}, you will need to enter the following unique code at the beginning of the survey (please copy and paste):Your unique code is:  {PIN}Thank you![Your name]
4. Of course, you need to ensure your linked survey is set up in order to include its link in the email template above.  You’ll also want to start that survey off with a question collecting (and validating the format of) the code the linked respondent should enter.  The details needed to set up that question follow:
   1. Question type:  Short free text
   2. Question Text:  “Please enter the code from your invitation email.”
   3. Enter the following under “Validation” to ensure the code is a possible code based on the settings in this example (edit accordingly using LimeSurvey syntax if you changed the random code format):  /^[0-9]{4}[A-Za-z]{2}[0-9]+$/
5. Now all you need to do is set the “Detailed admin notification” to be sent to the supervisor’s email address (or other linked respondent).  This is implemented as follows:
   1. Under “Surveys” click to select your survey.
   2. Under the “Survey properties” drop down menu, select “General settings and text”
   3. Expand “Notification & data management” and under “Send detailed admin notification email to:” enter {INSERTANS:[SurveyID]X[GroupID]X[QuestionID]}

Now you can collect dyadic data using LimeSurvey.  Good luck and please share your experiences, improvements, extensions, and/or concerns.

Image credit:  https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V0cHqZl3fOA/VdUL4zegiNI/AAAAAAAABAM/oCmKZPukXsc/s640/APIM%2Bspecificis.png

In an effort to let survey respondents decide on the closest O*NET occupation themselves, I’ve come up with the following solution.  This should integrate with all of the major survey services (they just need to allow scripts to run within the survey).  I use this with LimeSurvey personally.  Please share any improvements!

Embed the following as script within a short answer/free text question:

<div id="realcontent">

<div id="content">

<h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:18px;"><span style="color:#000000;"><u>READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE ENTERING ANY TEXT!</u></span></span></h3>

<p><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Follow the steps below to select an occupation from a standardized list that is the <em>best </em>match to your own job.  You will copy a code from the search results to complete this item.</span></span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Here's how it works:</span></span></p>

<ol>

<li><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Enter your job title in the search box and <strong>click</strong> to search a list of standardized occupational titles.</span></span></li>

<li><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Search results will open a new tab in your browser so you don't have to worry about the survey closing.  <em>You might need to allow pop-ups from this site.</em></span></span></li>

<li><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:14px;">Scan through the occupations listed from your search.  Feel free to click on any of them for more information.  Once you decide on the best matching occupation copy its code and return to this page.  <strong>The code is listed to the left of the occupation name.</strong></span></span></li>

</ol>

</div>

</div>

<div class="search-wrapper" style="background:#FFFFFF; padding: 20px; margin: 20px; color: #2C3E50;"><span style="color:#000000;"><input class="tftext" id="tftextinput" maxlength="120" placeholder="Enter Your Job Title..." size="26" style="border:1px solid #233140;" type="text" /><button id="tfbutton" style="margin-left:8px;" type="button" value="Search O*NET Occupations">Click to search for a standardized occupational title</button> </span></div>

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">

$(document).ready(function() {

$('#tfbutton').on('click', function(e) {

e.preventDefault();

var b = $('#tftextinput').val();

window.open("http://www.onetonline.org/find/quick?s="+b)

});

});

</script>

Now, make another short answer/free text question to be displayed on the same page that says something along the lines of:

“Now paste or type the occupation code in the box below. You must enter the code exactly as it appears online (i.e, include hyphens and decimal points and don’t add spaces before or after the code).”

For this answer you should validate that it follows an O*NET code format (e.g., ##-####.##).  The specific validation text for use in LimeSurvey is:   /^[1-5][0-9]-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9].[0-9][0-9]$/

Click here for a working example of the search box.

I’ve also uploaded tracks to the Sound Foundry media page.

For those at SIOP and interested, I’ll be presenting “A Three-Dimensional Examination of Misfit Asymmetry for Interests and Job Satisfaction.”  The presentation includes an introduction to a new response surface method (“Response Surface Sampling Methodology”) that is well suited to cross-validation and accounts for areas of misfit.  Session details are below.  Hope to see you there!