Learning Experience: Interview Process Hatred

Learning Experiences Blog 6

The interview process. I hate it. I mean, what’s there to like, anyway? You’re being asked to expose yourself to people you know nothing about while they sit there and judge every last movement you make. They read your body language, they whisper to each other about subtleties in your words that they’re trying to make sense of, and they ask you to talk about your weaknesses. I don’t know about you, but I would rather not straight up admit I’m not the person they should be hiring.

I know hiring managers would never admit this, but it’s like they’re looking for something wrong with you – some way for them to not hire you. This is madness. I’m already not one to brag about myself, but it’s prevalent even more so in settings whereby my insecurity is exacerbated. For starters, there can’t be one right answer to every question; everyone is different, and those differences should be celebrated not judgmental.

Interviews in my opinion are the most flawed tool that hiring leaders use to evaluate candidates. There are many things that cannot be accurately evaluated in an interview. For example, many team skills, technical skills, attitudes and personalities are very difficult to measure. Sure, you can get a sense of what someone MAY be like, but it’s hard to not assume things about someone through this process. Inherent biases are also a factor most companies and hiring recruiters fail to address.

 Also, interviews cover things that have happened in the past. Personally, the past does not always predict how someone will react to future situations. The candidate may not have had a good working environment which could have resulted in their poor performance. Additionally, almost universally, interviewers do not all agree on what they consider “good”, “bad” and “weak” answers; therefore individuals may not be scored the same across the board. Also, the basic foundation of an interview relies on assumptions concluding that the candidate is acting normally. The reality is most individuals are scared to death of interviews and there are many factors that may suggest a candidate is indeed not acting like they normally would.

An interview is not the day-to-day work you will actually be doing. That’s a problem for me – how can one accurately determine whether or not a candidate would be a good fit when they haven’t had the ability to show them? Also, interviewees are trained to answer the way most people expect them to answer rather than providing the most accurate and truthful answer.

As you may conclude, I could go on and on about why I hate interviews. I won’t; but I wanted to use this blog to inform others about my personal experience and personal opinion on the interview process. I think the more people talk about their experiences, the more well-rounded an individual becomes. It’s all about perspective.

I’ll get off my soapbox now.