Comments on: A Candidate Said ‘Water’ in an Interview. What Happened Next Reveals a Hiring Problem https://www.evilhrlady.org/2025/12/a-candidate-said-water-in-an-interview-what-happened-next-reveals-a-hiring-problem.html Everything to make HR better Sun, 07 Dec 2025 13:24:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: Suraj Junghare https://www.evilhrlady.org/2025/12/a-candidate-said-water-in-an-interview-what-happened-next-reveals-a-hiring-problem.html#comment-243341 Sun, 07 Dec 2025 13:24:03 +0000 https://www.evilhrlady.org/?p=8021#comment-243341 This hiring manager seemed as though he wasn’t necessarily looking for a quality hire, rather a quality performance. The candidate’s most direct and simplistic response of “Water” was indeed an honest and professional answer, yet it cost him heavily because he did not play the manager’s odd game of unstandardized behavior.

The issue is that the hiring manager did not care about the content of what the candidate said; he was looking to hear a response he expected to receive regarding the candidate’s personality traits.

The hiring manager ended the interview for a variety of reasons, which could include his ego, bias (conscious or unconscious), or an ill-conceived interview structure. The candidate avoided a serious pitfall by providing the simplest answer to a preference question, which gives some indication of the way the hiring manager would likely respond to more complex issues in the workplace.

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