The stress or challenge interview is one in which one or more interviewers ask questions aimed at causing stress on the candidate. It’s used primarily in interviews for jobs to be performed in stressful conditions.

In these cases, the interviewer needs to know how the applicant would respond to the pressure element. Many people have got little emotional control so the recruiter will try to find that out by asking the candidate carefully.

There are different methods to induce stress. The most common are:

* Criticizing the candidate‘s views on some issues

* Interrupting the interviewee

* Being quiet for a long period of time after the candidate has finished speaking

Sometimes the interviewer is not the only one able to create a tense situation. There are times when the candidates themselves are not easy to interview because they try to take the lead, being aware of it or not.  However, this method should be applied with extreme care and shouldn’t be used with candidates who have shown signs of emotional distress.

Besides, it shouldn’t be used at the beginning of the interview because this approach makes it impossible to compare between the candidate‘s normal behavior and the one under stress. Nor should it be used at the end of the interview since it’s better to give the candidate the opportunity to recover from the stress before leaving.

There isn’t one method that can generate stress in all candidates. Using the same one, an applicant can stay cool and relaxed while another one may show an emotional response.