Interview anxiety corrupts the signal

Selection researchers kept finding the same troubling pattern in interviews. A candidate's anxiety, how nervous they were, measurably lowered their interview scores, and it did so independently of their actual ability to do the job. In other words, two people equally capable would score differently if one was more anxious, and the more anxious one would lose, even though anxiety in a high-pressure interview says little about performance in the actual role. Now consider the popular idea of the deliberately tough interview, the stress interview designed to rattle candidates and see how they hold up. It cranks up exactly the variable that corrupts the measurement. What it reveals is who is best at staying composed while being deliberately unsettled by a stranger, which for most jobs is not the job.

A nervous candidate scores lower regardless of how good they are, so anything that increases their anxiety makes your read less accurate, not more. The tough, high-pressure interview feels rigorous, like you are stress-testing people, but mostly it tests tolerance for artificial pressure applied by a stranger, a skill that rarely matches the real work. Unless the job itself involves performing under exactly that kind of hostile scrutiny, a deliberately stressful interview is not measuring what you think. Calmer conditions, where a capable person can actually show you what they can do, give you a truer signal than a manufactured ordeal.

Work Rules!

Laszlo Bock, 2015

On designing hiring that measures the work, not the candidate's tolerance for theatre.