Do Job Interviews Get Easier As Workers Get Older?
The saying goes, “Love, like wine, gets better with age,” but does the adage extend to job interviews too? For the answer, we turned to Glassdoor’s Chief Economist, Dr. Andrew Chamberlain. In a new study of a large sample of more than 250,000 interview reviews on Glassdoor, Dr. Chamberlain and his team looked at the factors that make job interviews difficult. In addition to multi-step evaluations making interviews harder for candidates, age is a reported factor that intensifies the interview process. “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,” says Dr. Chamberlain. “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.” But aren’t older worker’s more experienced? Doesn’t their industry insight give them a leg up? Yes, however, the challenges may not be rooted in the ability to answer questions or provide anecdotes. Instead, research reveals that the difficulty lies in the type of interview screens. “Perhaps unsurprisingly, group panel interviews mattered most for interview difficulty,” says Dr. Chamberlain. “Adding a