“Stress” interviews: hiring by humiliation
Job interviews are rarely a pleasant experience, said James Moore in The Independent, but the one Olivia Bland endured last week appears to have been particularly hideous. The 22-year-old graduate says she was left in tears at the bus stop after a two-hour grilling by Craig Dean, the boss of a tech company in Oldham where she had hoped to become a communications assistant. In a letter to the company turning down a job offer, which she posted on Twitter, Bland complained that Dean had called her an “underachiever”, torn apart her written application, asked personal questions and even criticised her music taste as he scrolled through her Spotify account. The interview, she wrote, felt like “being sat in a room” with her “abusive ex”.
Aspects of the interview certainly sound “slightly creepy”, said Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail, but did Dean, who conducted the session in the presence of two female employees, really deserve to be likened to an abusive ex? Interviews are meant to be “robust and challenging”, to reveal the best candidates. Bland deserves credit for bravely speaking out, but her response will have reinforced the view of many that “the default position for privileged middle-class millennials is to paint themselves as victims who would rather turn to social media than wake up to a real world that’s often stressful and unfair”.
Experts are divided about the effectiveness of the “stress interview” concept, said Peter Rubinstein on BBC News. Some believe that deliberately unsettling candidates can reap useful insights into how individuals cope with pressure and approach problems. “But virtually all agree that using any level of derision and humiliation is unacceptable and outdated.” The technique patently didn’t work in this case, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Bosses who take this macho approach have simply watched “way too many series of The Apprentice”. The irony is that Dean, who has apologised and insisted he meant no harm, “must have been exposed to something of a stress test himself” since Bland’s letter went viral, with half the internet mocking his management techniques. “Somehow, I doubt he has emerged from it convinced of the usefulness of ritual humiliation.”