Interviews Don’t Work

Think back to your last interview, for some, it might be a few years ago, for others, it might be more recent. Were you nervous, overwhelmed, or did you feel like you weren’t able to explain everything about yourself. Interviewing is hard to do, it takes a lot of time and effort to get really good at bragging about yourself. It’s a skill, just like public speaking or playing basketball. You have to practice it if you want to do really well in at it. Why is that? Why should you have to get good at something that has nothing to do with working? Let me take you through the problems that I have with interviews.

1. You don’t get to convey your true self to the interviewer.

You’re not really yourself in an interview, you are your social media profile. What I mean by that is you are a perfect version of yourself. When they ask you about your strengths and weakness, you talk highly about your strengths and turn your weaknesses into a strength. Just like all the professional interviewers tell you to do.

In a way, people lie about themselves in an interview. You become someone who the interviewer might like or is looking for. You are telling them what they want to hear and if you’re are really good at interviewing, you know what they want to hear and talk about that all day long.

People think that if they’re aren’t perfect, they won't get accepted to the job. The thing is, you never know what the interviewer is looking for, what you portray to them, might be the exact opposite of what they are looking for.

2. Confirmation Bias

The first 10 seconds of meeting someone is so crucial, that’s why people always say make a good first impression. For example, if you just met someone, the first 10 seconds they will size you up and determine what type of person you are. The next 15 minutes of talking with them, they will try and confirm their beliefs about you. Let’s say it was a bad first impression, the next 15 minutes they will be trying to find something wrong with everything you say, nothing will be good enough. If you told them that you broke the sales record at your company by $5,000 they will think to themselves, why wasn’t it $10,000.

For an interview, the first 10 seconds are even more important. A bad first impression, you’ll most likely not get the job because they will be looking for the negatives about yourself and ignore the positives. They will only focus on the negatives because they have to be right about their confirmation.

It sucks because the first 10 seconds is a very small slice of the pie. It’s almost nothing in the interview. It’s often times the determining factor.

3. The bosses shouldn’t interview… EVER

The reason for this is because the interviewee won’t be their true selves. The won’t be able to open up as much as they would to their peers or people below them. The goal should always be to make the interviewee as comfortable and relaxed as possible. Think of it like this, you have a child who has a problem, who is that child going to tell first? His/her friends or parents? I would say 9 times out of ten they would go to their friends because they are the most comfortable with them. The child's friends are probably going through the same things and it would be easier to talk to.

The same things apply with interviews, the person being interviewed isn’t going to tell the boss everything, they are going to be professional with them and tell them what they want to hear. If they are interviewed by a peer or a subordinate, they are going to feel much more comfortable and going to tell them the real answers.

4. People don’t know what they are looking for

Determining if someone is going to do well in the workplace off of an interview is a shot in the dark. It has roughly the same percentage as flipping a coin. It’s been the same process for years and no one has innovated on it. Interviews really just scratch the surface of a person, you don’t really get to know them because people fail to ask the right questions. The continue to ask the top 100 interview questions that you would find on Google. They need to ask more personable questions and really find out about their character. Skills can be taught, finding someone with a good personality and work ethic is hard to do.