These common evaluations include assessment centers, intelligence tests, and situational interviews.

Situational interview questions ask job applicants to imagine a set of circumstances and then indicate how they would respond in that situation; hence, the questions are future oriented.

Behavior description interviews ask applicants to describe past behavior related to specific aspects of the job, while situational interviews have applicants respond to hypothetical job-related dilemmas.

Faking behavior is less prevalent, for instance, in past behavioral interviews than in situational interviews, although follow-up questions increased faking behaviors in both types of interviews.

Klehe and Latham found that both the behavior description interview and the situational interview predicted typical performance, and the situational interview also predicted maximum performance.

Very little research has attempted to look at how various selection tools can predict an employee's behavior with regard to typical and maximum performance; however, one recent study did focus on behavior description interviews and situational interviews.

Another method that has been gaining favor recently for scrutinizing job candidates, Dr. Hansen says, is something called the situational interview, which uses role-playing techniques to gauge applicants' responses to situations they might encounter on the job.