| Ok, let's forget about the deception part. Interviews are horrible. They round-down to being useless at actually determining whether someone will be good at a job. I think we all mostly agree with this, at least to a degree. To be clear on why I bring this up: this cuts both ways. If someone does poorly during an interview, this is a poor signal as to whether they'll actually perform poorly at the job. But, similarly: if someone does exceedingly well during an interview, this is also a poor signal as to whether they'll actually perform well at the job. It works both ways, you see? I love the quote from Andy Grove at the bottom of the article. We all know interviews suck, from both perspectives. Its easy to just jump to a conclusion there: Well, lets kill the interview, they're pointless, why do we do them? Its a signal. Its not a very useful signal, but it isn't useless. There are two signals that are, generally, characteristic of a much higher signal-to-noise ratio: references and work history. This isn't bullshit gatekeeping. This is prioritizing the signals that have the highest probability of accurately predicting how well a new hire will do. He wouldn't have gotten an interview had he told the truth. That's probably because, at this point, there's very little information at the hiring manager's disposal to conclude that the hire would be a successful one. Even at the end of the interviews, he probably wouldn't have gotten hired. It is gatekeeping. But its not bullshit. |