I was part of a job interview process recently, on the hiring side of the table for the first time in 15 years, and was instantly reminded how weird the whole business is. The debate about whether bringing iced coffee to interviews is bad form just highlights the silliness of selection processes: you could bring a live weasel to an interview and still get the job if the interviewer likes the look of you. It’s a biased, arbitrary business, and interviewers decide fast (a 2015 study found 25% decided within five minutes and 60% within 15), sometimes on little more than vibes. Everyone has a horror story: an acquaintance was recently told she was “perfect for the role”, despite barely saying a word as the interviewer monologued wildly for 45 minutes while vaping in her face.
Being a good interviewee isn’t the same as being a good employee, either. I’ve crashed and burned at every interview, including for jobs I know I would have done decently. Once my interviewers told me they knew I was messy “because we’ve seen your kitchen” (the perils of 00s blogging); another time, a junior employee informed me before the ordeal had even started that I’d blown it by wearing trousers.
But what’s the alternative? Those interminable Hunger Games “assessment centre” processes with tests and group exercises are even worse – building Lego towers with strangers is no test of anything meaningful. The spooky AI screening my younger son and his mates face as they try to claw their way out of Neetdom is depersonalising and depressing, and, research suggests, as susceptible to bias as the human version – imagine having your future decided by a prejudiced glorified self-checkout machine.
So I suppose the 45-minute chat is here to stay, but let’s not pretend it’s anything more than an awkward chemistry read. In my case, it was instantly apparent that the candidate was vastly more qualified and knowledgable than me and I had no business even asking them questions. I suppose that’s another case of an interviewer making up their mind far too quickly, but (like most interviewers) I’m sure I’m right.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
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