I’ve had a lot of jobs in my career, and as such I’ve had many, many, many software engineering interviews.
I wish I could say I’ve gotten good at interviewing, but that wouldn’t be honest. While I will occasionally have a decent interview, I think I’m usually pretty bad at the entire process.
I don’t know enough about psychology to tell you what exactly makes me so shitty at it, but if I were to hazard a guess it’s a combination of my tendency to ramble, my inability to speak for long periods of time without making stupid jokes, or just my generally rude demeanor.
Probably mostly that last one, honestly.
Why do I have so much trouble being polite in interviews? How hard is it to be polite to people?
The thing is, it’s not hard for me to be polite. I’m polite to most people most of the time, even people I don’t like. What’s hard is being constantly polite to people I don’t know very well.
If I go to Taco Bell, I’m perfectly nice to all the workers, because I’m only interacting with them for only a few minutes at a time. They aren’t judging everything I’m doing, and they’ll likely forget about me ten minutes after I leave the store. It’s a transactional politeness, and it’s brief and simple.
Interviews are different. Interviews can last anywhere between thirty minutes and two hours. I’m expected to lead most of the conversation, talking about all my wonderful accomplishments. I’m expected to be polite and charming and non-confrontational and intelligent and witty for the entire encounter. The entire time I am reminding myself that every single thing I’m doing is being judged and evaluated and saying the wrong thing could blow the entire thing.
Of course, it’s easy to be nice and polite when everything is going fine. When the person on the other end of the interview is conversational and intelligent, it’s not difficult for me to reciprocate, but most interviewers are not conversational and many are only questionably intelligent.
When the interviewer is wrong about something, what exactly is the correct response? Do you just ignore it and roll with it? Do you correct them? What if they push back on your correction? Do you stand firm or back down?
What if they’re actively rude to you? Do you be rude back? Do you smile and take it? Do you just leave the interview? Do you point out why you felt what they said was bad?
What if you’ve just had a really shitty day right before the interview? Do you put on a big fake smile and pretend everything is fine? Do you act like you feel and give the impression that you’re just a bummer of a human? Do you just cancel the interview? What if you haven’t had an interview for three weeks and you don’t know when the next one will be?
I don’t know the correct answer to any of these, but trying to adhere to the ritual is fucking exhausting. Interviews end up being a frustratingly intimate and vulnerable thing for the interviewee, and it’s hard for me to be vulnerable and positive throughout a bunch of conversations with strangers.
I think the thing that bothers me isn’t even the ritual itself, it’s the fact that we all know it’s fake. I know I’m putting on a persona, the interviewers know I’m putting on a persona, and yet we all have to act like this is how humans actually behave.
I don’t know what the fuck the point is. Everyone is putting on a show and the companies performing the interviews expect us to act like this isn’t fucking weird.
I guess that’s the thing. It’s weird to me that people don’t seem to think it’s weird. It’s weird to try and convince strangers that you’re not only competent for whatever hypothetical work they throw at you, but you’re also a person who is a good “culture fit” (whatever that means). It’s weird that there’s this interaction that cargo-cults as a “conversation” but both parties are actively being dishonest with each other.
I wish there were a way to avoid this entire thing. Maybe I should buy some lottery tickets.