A job interview is one of the few situations where everyone pretends.
The company pretends it’s the perfect place to work.
The candidate pretends they’re the perfect hire.
Both sides know neither story is completely true.
Yet somehow, we all sit there nodding politely and act as though we’re participating in a meaningful exercise designed to uncover the truth.
Let’s be honest.
The candidate isn’t saying, “I need this job because my mortgage is due next week and I’ve been rejected 47 times.”
They’re saying, “I’m passionate about this exciting opportunity and have always dreamed of working for an organization like yours.”
Really?
Always dreamed of it?
Last month you were applying to three competitors and a government position.
Meanwhile, the company isn’t saying, “We’re understaffed, overworked, struggling with turnover, and still trying to figure out why people keep leaving.”
No.
They’re saying, “We’re like a family here.”
Which should immediately concern everyone because most families don’t require five rounds of interviews and a personality assessment before Thanksgiving dinner.
Then comes the performance portion of the event.
The interviewer asks:
“Tell me about a time you dealt with conflict.”
The candidate quickly searches through twenty years of life experience trying to determine which story sounds professional enough, impressive enough, and harmless enough to satisfy the corporate gods.
Not the real story.
The approved story.
The polished story.
The story that’s been rehearsed twelve times in front of a bathroom mirror.
And we call this authenticity.
The irony is almost beautiful.
Companies say they want candidates to be genuine.
Candidates are told to be themselves.
Then both sides spend the next forty-five minutes carefully avoiding saying what they actually think.
It’s less of an interview and more of a theatrical production.
The interviewer plays the role of Objective Evaluator.
The candidate plays the role of Ideal Employee.
Everyone sticks to the script.
Everyone knows the script.
Everyone pretends the script reveals something meaningful.
Meanwhile, the real questions never get asked.
Can this person solve problems?
Can they learn?
Can they work with others?
Can they contribute?
Can they actually do the job?
Those answers are often buried beneath carefully rehearsed anecdotes and corporate buzzwords.
And that’s what fascinates me most about modern hiring.
We’ve built an entire system around creating the appearance of certainty.
We ask scripted questions.
We score scripted answers.
We complete structured evaluations.
Then we convince ourselves we’ve discovered the best candidate.
When in reality, we may have simply discovered the best performer.
Maybe that’s why so many hiring decisions go wrong.
Not because people are dishonest.
But because the process itself rewards performance over reality.
So here’s the question nobody seems willing to ask:
If both sides are pretending, if both sides know they’re pretending, and if everyone leaves without fully revealing who they really are…
Why are we still calling this a hiring process?
Maybe it’s time to stop auditioning people and start evaluating them.
Because finding the right person shouldn’t depend on who gives the best performance.
It should depend on who can actually do the work.
Closing Thought
The greatest illusion in hiring isn’t that candidates pretend to be perfect.
It’s that we’ve convinced ourselves a room full of rehearsed answers somehow reveals the truth.
Curious About the Bigger Conversation?
If you’ve ever left an interview wondering whether your skills mattered less than your ability to tell the “right” story, you’re not alone.
Job Interviews & F**ing Behavioral Questions* explores…the myths, contradictions, and absurdities of modern hiring practices while challenging the idea that behavioral questions are the best way to identify talent.
Because hiring should be about capability, not performance.
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