The Job Interview
Launch library · evergreen read
Unlike most interview formats, the job interview exists explicitly to evaluate rather than simply to gather information, which changes the incentives on both sides: the subject is motivated to present their strongest possible self, and the interviewer is tasked with looking past that presentation toward something closer to the truth.
Structured versions of the format, using the same set of questions for every candidate, aim to make comparisons fairer, while unstructured versions allow more natural conversation at the cost of consistency across different candidates being considered for the same role. Both versions still aim, at least in part, at drawing out something honest beneath the presentation on offer.
The format's evaluative purpose means the usual goal of an interview, drawing out an honest account, sits alongside a second and sometimes competing goal: assessing fit and capability, which shapes both the questions chosen and how the answers are ultimately weighed. Balancing these two goals, honesty and evaluation, is what makes the format genuinely distinct from most others.