Like most other seniors, I've spent the past year writing cover letters in a desperate attempt to find a job for next year. While job hunting has been extremely tedious, in retrospect, I feel that I learned a lot from this experience. After having several interviews this year, I've come to believe that the current system of job recruitment is flawed.
Most forms of job selection require an in-person interview. An applicant's performance during the interview tends to be the deal breaker the determining factor of whether or not an applicant gets hired. It makes sense that an employer would want to conduct an interview with a potential employee, both to make sure the person can communicate effectively and to get a sense of the applicant's personality. The interview doesn't seem so bad in theory, especially if an applicant prepares in advance.
However, many interviews can be difficult to anticipate, with recruiters asking in-depth questions that have little relevance to the responsibilities of the job description. Most people can prepare answers to common interview questions like, "Tell me about a time you've acted as a leader," but other questions, either analytical or out-of-left-field ("What is the most difficult thing you've ever been through?"), require on-the-spot thinking and succinct vocalization of ideas, which are skills that not everyone can master.
Consequently, the applicants who are often favored by employers are not only those who can "communicate effectively" in interviews, but rather those who are able to speak on command and provide eloquent answers immediately. In essence, the current system of job recruitment gives preference to a certain type of personality: fast-thinking extroverts.
In some cases, the applicants who excel in interviews and are consequently hired are both qualified for the job and can think and speak rapidly on their feet. Employers are hurt, however, if they unknowingly favor applicants who simply know how to sound convincing but are not the most qualified applicants to perform the job at hand.
These interviews therefore recruit the applicants who are the most efficient but not necessarily the best at thinking, analyzing and communicating information. The question is, what matters more in the workforce: intelligence or efficiency? Certainly in many corporate jobs, thinking quickly and speaking confidently are undoubtedly assets when dealing with the fast-paced economy or inpatient clients. But other types of jobs require excellent research and analytical skills, which don't always translate well to quick-thinking and efficiency. Despite the varied skill sets required for different jobs though, the process of recruitment through these high-pressure interviews is practically the same across the board.
This system of job recruitment seems to convey a message to applicants of all vocations that ideas or solutions created quickly and communicated loudly are superior to ideas formed by introverts or ideas that take more time to formulate. The quick-thinking and extroverted tendencies that are valued in interviews should not be given precedence over intricate, thorough, internal analysis of questions or problems that need to be solved. The demand for articulate answers and the rushed thought process required in interviews places more value on the superficial personality of an applicant than his or her intellectual capacity, which should not be the case.
That said, not all blame can be placed on employers for preferring fast-thinking extroverts. Interviews that screen for these personalities are part of a self-sustaining cycle as a result of what our society values. The system of job recruitment is simply a byproduct of the culture of American society itself that demands quick and well-articulated answers over slow, incomplete or messy results.
But while the image of our productivity in a variety of disciplines will only be enhanced as we continue to recruit more fast-thinking extroverts as time goes on, it remains to be seen whether the quality of solutions to our world's problems will be improved as well in the current system that exists.
