evile

Have you ever had a job interview, and you realized or felt like you are smarter than the interviewer(s) but yet you did not get the job?

If I was in an interview and it seemed that the person interviewing me knew less about the job requirements or technical skills than I did, I would not assume I was smarter than the interviewer.

First, I would wonder if the person was ‘playing dumb’ to see if they could trap me into being condescending or going into obnoxious ‘mansplaining’ mode. They might be testing to see if you are the sort of person who can explain things to another person without talking down to them and making them feel bad or dumb.

Second, if I was interviewing for a technical position, I might think that the interviewer was someone in HR who was just checking to make sure I was presentable before passing me on for a second, more technical interview with a busy tech person who didn’t have time or energy to devote to an initial interview for the purposes of screening out candidates. In my experience there are many tech people who don’t have ‘soft skills’ for interviewing or public speaking, so the HR department may step in to help a technical department find a new employee who is not just technically smart for the position advertised but also a good fit personality-wise for the company culture.

If an employer reaches out to let you know that you were not selected for a job, it’s a good opportunity to ask some follow up questions to see what improvements you can make for the next interview.

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