The 9-Minute Rule According to Interviewers

JobKorea, Survey of Employees Participating as Interviewers
Average Time to Decide Rejection is 8.9 Minutes

The type of applicant that interviewers ranked as the 'number one reason for rejection' was the 'latecomer.' Additionally, interviewers reported that they filtered out unsuccessful candidates within an average of 9 minutes.

On the 28th, Meta career platform JobKorea announced the results of a survey titled 'Best and Worst Types of Interviewees' (multiple responses) conducted on 383 working professionals who had experience as interviewers this year. When asked which type of interviewee they considered the worst among applicants, 4 out of 10 interviewers (40.7%) answered the 'lazy type who arrives late to the interview.'

[Image source provided by JobKorea]

The next most common types were the 'insincere type lacking information about the company applied to' (24.0%) in second place, and the 'apathetic type who consistently shows a lack of confidence' (20.1%) in third place. Other responses included ▲the 'irrelevant answer type' who gives answers unrelated to the questions (18.5%), ▲the 'distracted type' who cannot focus during the interview (15.7%), and ▲the 'resigned type' (10.2%).

On the other hand, there were types who were rejected despite not being late and having good interview manners. 93% of interviewers said there were unfortunate candidates among those interviewed who seemed unlikely to find a job quickly. Representative examples included ▲applicants who could not grasp the gist of the questions (44.9%) and ▲applicants who appeared to lack social skills (44.7%).

Conversely, when asked which types of applicants interviewers thought would likely receive good scores not only at their company but also at other companies’ interviews (multiple responses), the top choice was applicants with abundant experience in the applied field who seemed capable of handling any task (48.0%). Following were ▲applicants who appeared polite and diligent (37.4%), ▲applicants who seemed friendly and had good interpersonal skills (36.6%), and ▲applicants who appeared cooperative and likely to adapt well to the organizational culture (30.7%), all of whom were viewed favorably.

Interviewers also positively evaluated applicants who ▲researched company information in advance and asked questions they were curious about (33.7%), ▲did not give up and answered to the best of their ability until the end (29.2%), and ▲honestly admitted when they did not know the answer to a question (23.0%).

When asked openly about the time taken to decide on acceptance or rejection during interviews, interviewers indicated that they made their decision within about 10 minutes of the interview starting. In particular, the average time to decide on rejection was 8.9 minutes, which was 3.4 minutes faster than the 12.3 minutes taken to decide on acceptance.