Thinking back on interviews I’ve been a part of, most of them leaned towards being ineffective because they depended heavily on unstructured conversation. A lot of times, I was asked a vague question like “what challenge have you faced in life and how did you overcome it?” Honestly, the real answers I would want to give would involve personal trauma, which seems unprofessional to talk about, and I don’t feel is appropriate for an interview. But when I answer with the “safer” story (like playing soccer in high school), I always feel like I sound bland and unauthentic, almost like I haven’t faced adversity or real challenges in life. That is the downside of unstructured interview questions. They are subjective, heavily interpretation-based, and not tied to actual job performance. From The Perfect Hire (Chamorro-Premuzic & Steinmetz, 2013) research shows people tend to overestimate how well their intuition can predict success, even though it’s a poor predictor.
Most of my jobs have been in the restaurant industry where interviews are mostly just trying to feel about my personality and scheduling. I have 6 years of serving and 7 years bartending experience, and those interviews are usually direct: What is your availability? Where have you worked before? They aren’t necessarily trying to measure job-related KSAOs in a scientific way. They’re really just trying to confirm that I can handle the pace and that I won’t create drama.
My more professional interviews, like for an engineering internship in Portland, felt more aligned with what we learned in class. They asked if I prefer working individually or in teams, and even asked if I enjoy games like Tetris and spatial orientation. At the time I didn’t know what the “right” answer was supposed to be, but looking back now, those questions are closer to situational and personality indicators. If I could go back, I would advise all employers to move toward structured interviews, scoring guides, and adding work samples, because from 7 Practical Ways to Reduce Bias in Your Hiring Process (Knight, 2017), evidence shows those are more valid and reduce bias.