Hey Little Pineapple,

Today we're diving into the psychology of interviewing.

Fair heads up, it won't be a quick social media style read, so grab a coffee and let's get into it.

Let me ask you something first: how long do you think it takes a hiring manager to decide whether they want to move you forward?

Here's the good news and the bad news.

Good news: the "you're evaluated within the first 60 seconds" thing is a myth.
Usually that first minute is small talk or making sure everyone can hear each other on the call.

Bad news: it does happen sometimes. There's a study from 2015, How quickly do interviewers reach decisions? by Frieder, Van Iddekinge, and Raymark, that found 4.9% of interviewers make a decision within the first minute.

So statistically, you're safe there.

But! Nearly 60% had already made their decision within the first 15 minutes.

And of that group, 25% made it within five minutes.

Our lesson here? You have more than 60 seconds. But you need to show the best version of yourself within the first five minutes to have the biggest chance of moving forward.

"Ok Patryk, but why?"
Glad you asked, let's go

Deeper into the rabbit hole

Here's why those five minutes matter more than they should:

Once a hiring manager forms an early impression, everything that follows is used to confirm it.

And they're not broken, their brain works just like yours.

In Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris describe what they call the pyramid of choice.

When we make a decision, especially one that could alter how we see ourselves, we start at the top of the pyramid.

One small choice nudges you in a direction, and you start sliding down one side.
Your colleague, facing the same decision, makes a different choice and slides down the other.

Think about cheating on a test in college. You and a friend both have the opportunity. Only you do it. Immediately after, your brain starts looking for reasons it was actually fine. You had a lot going on, the grade wasn't that important, you were busy. Meanwhile your friend, who didn't cheat, now sees cheaters as worse than before. Because she made a choice and potentially paid a price for it (stress, lower grade) her brain needs this choice to be worth this price. So it amplifies the weight of cheating in the test. Her brain needs this sacrifice to mean something.

The same thing happens in interviews. A hiring manager forms an early impression, positive or negative, and from that moment, the rest of the conversation becomes confirmation, not evaluation.

Strong answers from someone they liked get remembered.
Weak answers from someone they didn't get amplified.
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It's not intentional. Most of the time they have no idea it's happening.

What you're seeing is cognitive dissonance protection: the brain avoids the discomfort of contradicting itself.

It's also why it's so hard to make a hiring manager reverse a rejection. Their brain is actively working to preserve "I was right."

So what do you do with that?

The beginning of an interview is more important than you realise, not because of some mystical "first impression" rule, but because those first minutes set the narrative.

If you land a few strong moments early, you'll likely get more forgiveness on a weaker answer later.
Start rocky and stumbling, and even a great answer feels like an exception.

How your brain hijacks you

So, before we label hiring managers as bad guys let's get one thing straight: the hiring manager isn't the only one doing this. You do this too.

Pattern #1 - self-justification​
You've probably seen it: someone on LinkedIn clenching their fists about how the interview process was broken and the hiring manager had no idea what they wanted.

And look, sometimes that's 100% true. But it's also pattern #1 at work.

What your brain is doing is protecting you from an uncomfortable idea: that maybe something in how you showed up wasn't working.

Because let's be also realistic here - if you can land the initial interview, but you just can't move past the first one the problem might not be with recruiter, HM or the process. More likely it's about how you present yourself. And that's just harder pill to swallow.

There is also a random thing I noticed as a recruiter: sometimes, the more people are convinced they are good at their jobs, the more frustrated they get with the process. Because they are blending "I'm good at what I do" with "I'm good at describing what I do." Those really aren't the same thing. If your mum can't roughly explain what you do, you're not great at describing it yet.

Pattern #2 - escalation of commitment
​This one is more dangerous over time. It's basically a more specific sunk-cost fallacy, which I'm sure you heard of.
The more energy you've invested in a job search strategy, the harder it becomes to admit it isn't working.

So what happens? More applications with the same CV. Same approach. Because changing course would mean admitting the last few months were partly wasted. That's a hard thought to sit with, and it keeps a lot of people stuck.

Pattern #3 - selective memory
After an interview you felt good about, you remember the moments that landed.

This great answer. The joke that made them laugh. The story you told and they actually listened.

Which means when the rejection comes anyway, you have no useful information, just a highlight reel in your head that tells you everything went fine. There's nothing to fix if you don't know what broke.

What you can do about it right now

The best place to start is to build a habit of honest post-interview reflection.

Not "why was the process unfair" but "what would I do differently?"
Not "they didn't see my potential" but "did I actually show it?"

It's harder. But it's the only thing that actually leads to a better interview next time.

Here's what you learned today:

The research says nearly 60% of hiring managers have made their decision within 15 minutes, and a 1/4 of those within five.
You have more time than the myths suggest, but less than you'd like.

You learned why that window matters so much. The pyramid of choice explains how one early impression sets a direction, and everything after becomes confirmation, not evaluation. The hiring manager isn't being unfair. Their brain is just doing what brains do.

And you learned that your brain is doing the same thing. Self-justification protects you from uncomfortable feedback. Escalation of commitment keeps you running a strategy that is just not working. Selective memory leaves you with a highlight reel instead of useful data.

The process isn't objective.
Neither are you.
Now you know.

Hope your coffee didn't get cold

Self-justification is a feature of human psychology, not a bug. And it's actually a neat feature - it protects us from being paralysed by every mistake we make.

But in a job search, where feedback is rare and patterns are hard to see, it quietly becomes the thing standing between you and getting better.

The hiring manager doesn't know they've already decided.

But now you do.

The question is what you decide to do with that.

Till next time Little Pineapple,
Patryk
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PS
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Grab it here: FREE CV TEMPLATE ​