INCOSE interviews its ESEP candidates over the phone, with no video and with pre-planned questions, at a time agreed to by the reviewers and the candidate. The lack of video is intentional, to avoid any bias that could come from the reviewers seeing the candidate. Similarly, planning the questions in advance improves the consistency of assessments across all candidates. Finally, interviews are not scheduled at extreme times for candidates, and candidates have the opportunity to reject times that are unsuitable for any reason.

Several updates to reviews are being tested, and are available upon request. First, all female candidates will have at least one woman as part of their review team. Second, all candidates who indicate that their native language is other than English will have at least one non-native English speaker as part of their review team. Third, candidates will have the opportunity to have the interview questions displayed in text on the screen during the interview if they request this prior to the day of the interview.

The interview is not intended to be a test of a candidate’s English mastery. It is not intended to be a test of hearing or speech clarity. INCOSE is working to reduce any bias of these forms.