At this moment in time, the increase in cross border human traffic has meant that companies are no longer dealing with a homogenous native community from which they recruit their staff. Companies are now facing cross cultural challenges in how they recruit, manage and develop a multi-cultural staff. One area of note where HR and management are finding difficulties is in the interview room.

With companies recruiting from a pool of candidates from different nationalities, cultures and faiths the cross cultural interview is an area that must be analysed properly if recruiters wish to capitalize on the potential available to them. This is necessary to ensure that candidates in cross cultural interviews are not discriminated against through misperceptions and poor judgements.

Interviews could be described as being similar to a play. All actors know their lines, cues and the appropriate corresponding behaviours. Interviewers expect model answers, so questions are anticipated and revised for by interviewees. However, the play only makes sense, in terms of getting the best out of the interview, when the actors involved share a similar culture. When interviews take on a cross cultural element, differences in how to act can cause misunderstandings. Such misunderstandings will unfortunately lead to interviewers wrongly rejecting candidates.

All recruiters share a common goal in wanting to hire the best. However, when cross cultural misunderstandings occur in interviews, this hinders the process of recruiting the best staff for the company. Learning to work with cross cultural differences in interviews ensures you get the best out of a candidate and do not allow cross cultural misperceptions to impede judgement.

The basis of incorporating a cross cultural framework of understanding in interviews is in overcoming