Originally Posted by
Adam Strange
So, in my considerable experience of applying for jobs (or work of any sort), I have found that there are two general approaches to interviews that companies use. The two approaches may very well be defined by your distinctions between Ti/Fe and Te/Fi. I've never thought about that before, but it might well be true.
In any case, the first type of job interview (probably the Te/Fi type) is one where you apply and they basically assume that whatever experience you have is not relevant to what they want you to do, and they will have to train you, but are you insane or a trouble-maker? Because one insane troublemaker can disrupt the entire company, and hiring one is a disaster. So in these interviews, the interviewer basically lets you talk about anything you want, ostensibly your work experience but they don't really care about that, what they want to know is Are you nuts?. Will hiring you bring down the entire company for a time until they can safely get you the hell out of there, legally? These interviews go pretty quickly, with the hiring decisions typically made on the spot, once the interviewer decides they like you and would trust you with possession of their dog for a day or so.
The second type of interview is one I associate with a large, complex organization, and might be more Ti/Fe. In this interview, you are asked specific questions about how you would do the job, again and again, until you answer incorrectly. This may take several days and involve meeting many layers of "management", but the goal is to pretend to interview you (that's why they were hired, after all) but to make the safest of all possible hiring decisions, which turns out to be, not to hire you at all. Because if they hire you and you turn out to increase the company's bottom line by 200%, the interviewer gets an email thanking them. If you turn out to wreck the company or step on some important person's toes, the question is asked of the interviewer as to why they didn't catch you before you were hired, and maybe someone else should be doing that interviewing job.
Either one of the two approaches is inherent in a company's culture, and you can't change it. I, personally, hated working for companies of the second sort, and therefore if the interviewing process takes too long or involves too many self-important assholes or too many minute questions, I simply back out and try a different company. I'm interviewing them, too, you see.
One of the best companies I ever worked for hired me (at an extremely high pay rate) after a ten minute phone interview, and their ad specifically said they were not looking for a person like myself. But I knew they should be, so I called them.