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For all the advances<\/a> in data science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral assessments, one hiring ritual remains stubbornly unchanged: the job interview, where candidates are still subjected to awkward brainteasers<\/a> about golf balls in airplanes, forced to disclose their \u201cbiggest weaknesses\u201d<\/a> to amateur psychologists, asked whether they would keep working after winning the lottery, or made to present to silent panels who seem less interested in evidence of competence than in observing how gracefully applicants endure a mildly humiliating social experiment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite decades of research showing<\/a> that traditional interviews are only moderately reliable predictors of performance, organizations continue to rely on them heavily. In fact, the typical interview still resembles what it looked like decades ago: a loosely structured conversation in which hiring managers form impressions based on intuition, chemistry, and gut feeling.<\/p>\n From a scientific standpoint<\/a>, this is not ideal. Unstructured interviews are vulnerable to a long list of well-documented biases<\/a>. Interviewers may favor candidates who resemble themselves (\u201csimilarity bias\u201d), appear confident or attractive (\u201chalo effects\u201d), or simply fit the cultural stereotype of what a successful employee looks like (\u201cculture fit\u201d). First impressions loom large, even when they are based on thin evidence. Charisma often outperforms competence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And yet, interviews persist. Why? Because hiring managers, like most humans, remain convinced they can \u201cspot talent\u201d when they see it<\/a>. In other words, the interview is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fortunately for candidates, this irrationality does not mean human behavior is unpredictable. As behavioral economist Dan Ariely<\/a> famously put it, people are \u201cpredictably irrational.\u201d That predictability matters, and you can use it to your advantage. Even if interviews are imperfect, there is a growing body of research on how interviewers evaluate candidates and what signals tend to shape<\/a> their judgments. Understanding those signals does not mean manipulating the system. It simply means avoiding the common mistakes that cause many candidates to underperform, or ensuring that you come across as well as you can.<\/p>\n One of the most overlooked opportunities occurs at the very end of the interview, when the interviewer \u2013 at times without a proper underlying plan or deliberate strategy \u2013 asks a deceivingly simple question: \u201cDo you have any questions for us?\u201d<\/em> Many candidates treat this moment as a formality. Some (usually the unprepared ones) say \u201cnot really.\u201d Others improvise a question on the spot, which rarely has a significant positive impact. Indeed, both approaches are somewhat risky and could result in decreasing candidates\u2019 ratings even after an overall good performance.<\/p>\nThe end game<\/h2>\n