If you're struggling with interviews, there's a decent chance that it's not you
I’ve gone through a few rounds of interviews in 2025 and they've been a stark reminder that your performance in any given interview is max 50% (arguably less) within your control. The rest is on the interviewer and the company.
Sure, you can control your prep, your stories, and your nerves, but think of all the things you absolutely can't control with the interviewer: their mood, their professional experience, their communication skills, their interviewing experience/quality, how busy they are that day, how much (or how little) they've prepared to speak with you, their biases, and probably a dozen other factors you don't even know about.
On top of that, think of how much the company controls, in aggregate, beyond the individual interviewer: interview rubrics, how consensus is built, hiring panels/reviews, recruiter screens, hiring manager screens, scheduling/timing, the candidate pipeline, job postings, and of course everyone's favorite, "culture fit".
In modern interviewing you have to make it through at least 4-5 of those interviews, each with a different flow, pace, and vibes every single time. No matter how much a company tries to standardize, they can't standardize human interactions. Every hour is different, and there's no way that you as a candidate can predict or prepare for it. Honestly, it's a minor miracle anyone makes it through any company's interview process to the offer stage.
All that said, I don't even have a good solution – hiring is very hard and every kind of evaluation (interviews, take home projects, working with a team for a week, fast hire/fast fire, etc.) has their own tradeoffs and none is perfect.
My point is simply that if you're struggling with interviews, there's a decent chance that it's not you. Try to remember how much of the process is out of your control, work hard at the things you can control, and keep your head up. It's a bummer but some of job hunting is just luck and timing, so I'm rooting for you and hoping that the right fit comes along soon. 💙
