Job Interviews Aren’t Evaluating the Right Skills

Drawing on research from BrightHire and Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work project, this article argues that job interviews frequently fail to assess the skills that employers identify as most important in job descriptions. Although interviews appear to cover many required competencies, evaluators often revisit the same topics rather than systematically examining a broader range of skills. The authors find particularly large gaps in the assessment of technical and experience-based skills, including competencies related to artificial intelligence, which were explicitly addressed in only a small fraction of interviews despite their growing workplace relevance. The article offers recommendations for improving interview design, increasing hiring fairness, and aligning recruitment practices with evolving workforce needs.