This Is Bad News for Your Next Job Interview

Remember how nervous you were during your first big interview? Maybe you weren’t sure if you were making enough eye contact. Perhaps you stumbled over some of your answers. When you left, you weren’t feeling overwhelmingly confident about receiving an offer. While you’ve come a long way since that first round of questions, a new survey from Glassdoor reveals that interviewing hasn’t gotten any easier. In fact, it’s getting increasingly challenging.

“We found that older workers reported significantly more difficult job interviews than younger workers on Glassdoor, even after controlling for job title, education, and industry,” Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s chief economist, said. “On average, moving up one age group — for example, moving from age 25-34 to 35-44 — is associated with approximately 1.3 percent more difficult job interviews, a small but significant increase.”

Where You’ll Face the Toughest Interviews

Companies like Google and Facebook are rumored to have a very challenging interview process — try developing an intelligent response when asked how many tennis balls can fit on a plane or how many books are published each year in the United States — but it turns out that the technology sector doesn’t deliver the most difficult interviews. That honor goes to hospital employers, and the non-profit sector follows close behind. In fact, meeting professionals looking for opportunities at non-profits can expect an interview that is 9.6 percent more difficult than the average interview.

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