Have You Ever Wondered if Job Interviews Make Sense?

The nature of hiring is insanely difficult.

Whether you’re fresh out of college or have a few years of experience under your belt, finding a job you like with people you like is no easy task. And frankly, even the most thorough interview is only giving you a glance through a peephole at the door you’re about to open.

Both the interviewer and the interviewee are essentially basing a few hours of interaction on the decision of whether or not they’re going to deal with that other person every day, generally more than they deal with their own family.

We spend more time with our immediate coworkers than we do with our significant others.

Could you imagine deciding to marry someone based on one to three hours of interaction, depending on how many times you interview?

It sounds like a severe comparison, but you could draw some parallels between divorcing and trying to leave a job. They sound like completely different things, and they are, one obviously has more emotions involved in the other. However, think about. If you work full time, you spend at least eight hours at work. Many spend nine, ten, or more.

How many hours do you spend at home with your family or partner? It’s definitely not eight hours, there’s just not enough time in the day after commutes and all that other nonsense.

Being trapped in a bad job is faintly similar to being trapped in an unhappy marriage. You’re stuck with something that isn’t working and disentangling yourself is hard, it can even take months or years. Job hunting can be a slow, slow process.

We all need to pay our bills, so for most of us, there’s no safety net to fall in if we’re unhappy in our jobs. We have to keep pushing regardless of how we feel. If you’re a millennial, you might be struggling with this on an even deeper level. We’re becoming known as the burnout generation.

But let’s get back to interviews.

How in the world are we supposed to make life-altering decisions based on just a few brief interactions?

Generally, one should stay at a job for at least a year or two to avoid the risk of being labeled as a job hopper. If you take a job that sits in your stomach like something you’re allergic to, you can’t just walk away from it unless you’re prepared to deal with some hazardous ramifications.

Doing ample research on the company, the department, and the team you’re interviewing with can help.

An interview is just as much you interviewing the employer as it is the employer interviewing you.

If you’re a fresh grad, it might not feel like it. We’re usually so desperate for a decent job that we focus on just bending ourselves to fit a job description’s mold perfectly. We forget that we’re trying to make sure we’ll like a place too.

Having multiple interviews helps.

Getting to tour the office helps.

Asking the right questions helps.

Being prepared can make a difference.

Are more interviews the answer? Highly debatable, that’s just going to take more time away from would be job hunters who are probably already struggling to take time off of their current job to interview for their next job. I don’t have a single perfect solution for the dilemma. These are just thoughts on a situation that is kind of impossible.

We accept it and roll with it because we have no other choice.

We have to work. We have to make money. Like Twenty One Pilots sings, “wake up, you need to make money.”

Despite all of those things, it doesn’t make the process of interviewing any easier.

Sometimes, we get lucky. We get a tolerable job with a group of people we like or can at least tolerate. If we’re really lucky, we might really like both the job and the people.

Though I might sound like an anarchist questioning the entire structure of hiring and interviewing to an extent that might make a human resources specialist chase after me with a pitchfork forged with cardstock resumes, I’ve had pretty good luck with jobs and interviews in the past.

I’ve worked with a lot of wonderful people and I’ve had a fair amount of success interviewing. I’ve made some interview blunders to avoid, I’ve prepared for awkward interview questions, and I’ve come out on the better side of things most of the time. I even have a designated “lucky interview shirt,” because a tiny bit of superstition never hurt anyone.

Despite all of that, interviewing is tough. Starting a new job is tough. If you’re feeling that fatigue or burnout, don’t beat yourself up over it, it’s only natural. If you’re in the throes of a job hunt, keep strong, stay confident, and keep pushing.