here are few things in life as aggravating as a job interview – both as an applicant and as an employer. Having been on both sides of that transaction, I’ve come to understand why everyone loathes the process so much. From the applicant's perspective, everybody despises the the experience of being checked out as if you're racehorse at an auction, letting strangers shine multiple spotlights on your weaknesses, sizing you up to determine if you are worthy of their attention. Employers, on the other hand, must face an exhausting parade of blowhards, prima donnas, poseurs, and obsequious ass-kissers to cull candidates with the skills and motivation to handle the tasks you are hiring for, as well as the ability to get along with your existing team.

Naïve and unsophisticated job hunters have a charity-seeking attitude, rattling their tin cups at the employer in hopes that he will be clothed and fed with the organization’s resources. But unless his family owns the company and the job he is applying for is “Vice-President in Charge of Waiting for Dad to Die,” that attitude won’t take the applicant very far.

Some people, having never been on the other side of the desk, may be surprised that employers dread interviews too. Upon closer examination of the employer-applicant dynamic, however, it makes a lot of sense. The fundamental problem of the job-interview exchange is that the two parties have highly divergent objectives. The employer is hiring for only one reason: to solve a problem. The problem can be straightforward, like handling inbound telephone calls. The problem can be complex, like lead-managing a software team to implement and debug a massive relational database management system two weeks before the company launches its e-commerce website. Either way, the interview process must transform a stack of resumes into a short list of capable, motivated professionals – and do so in a timely and efficient manner.

This is a difficult task – since there are two kinds of errors that must be avoided.

Type 1 Error: Hiring the wrong candidate This is the obvious one – within weeks of his start date, you discover that the new guy is either incompetent, lazy or just an obnoxious jerk. Your team is unhappy, and the issue the new employee was originally hired to handle remains unsolved – except now you have a guy on your payroll drawing out cash and benefits every day while you try to decide what to do with him.

Type 2 Error: Failing to hire a good candidate This is a less obvious mistake, but its consequences are just as undesirable as those of Type 1. Failure to hire good professionals reflects serious weaknesses in your recruiting process, and its fundamental mission of identifying and attracting talent. More importantly, the competent and skilled applicants you fail to hire may (particularly if your industry is small) end up working for a direct competitor, and use the knowledge about your organization acquired during the interviews to better position his new employer against you. The most dangerous aspect of Type 2 Errors is that they are largely invisible. Since top-flight professionals you fail to hire are working elsewhere and out of sight, most hiring managers have no idea how many Type 2 errors they commit.

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