The History Behind Job Interviews
Once we, as humans, advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage and began to assign non survival related professions to certain individuals, the passing of such roles from generation to generation was the norm. There was no need for an interview because, in short, you were born into your job. In this way, families would perform a particular job or role in the community, passing on their skills and techniques from one generation to the other. As time went on, this setup was no longer functional and we began diversifying our careers.
Read on to find out more about the history behind job interviews.
Apprenticeships
Before the industrial revolution, most jobs were “kept in the family” and each generation would follow in the footsteps of ancestors. However, every now and then a “job opening” would emerge when there was no “heir” available to whom a tradesman could pass his knowledge (or when that tradesman found that he had more business than he and his family could handle alone). In such cases an opening would arise and a youth would move into an apprenticeship to learn the craft. These were not jobs, as such; they were more like indentured servitude with the promise of advancement later.
First jobs
With the industrial revolution and the opening of large factories, job openings became plentiful. Getting a job meant showing up to the factory doors and waiting to get picked (a little like how it works for undocumented immigrants today).
Thomas Edison
It wasn’t until the 1920’s that there were enough college-educated people coming into the workforce that employers started to realize they could afford to be selective. In fact, the man who invented the lightbulb has also been credited with the creation of the modern job interview.
Thomas Edison, as the story goes, would get hundreds of applications whenever he needed to add to his workforce. As he became more and more frustrated with the college graduates who lack the knowledge he considered essential he created a test for all prospective employees. This test consisted of a series of general knowledge questions which ranged from specific to the post to more esoteric. It has been estimated that less than 7% of applicants passed this test.
Newspapers of the day picked up on this and so captains of industry, perhaps wishing to emulate him, began to use Edison's methods. This began the tradition of the job interview that we know so well now.
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