Interviewer "fixed effects"

 It's vary common to try to evaluate how interviews went in an attempt to figure out how good your chances are of moving on to the next stage. It seems to be a common topic of conversation among candidates. And when I was on the market, my advisors asked me to tell them a lot of details about each interview so they could figure out where I had the best chances. 

In my view, this is a fool's errand. Here's why:

Most of the differences you perceive between interviews are interviewer "fixed effects" that are constant across interviews they perform. That one interviewer who seemed very suspicious of your identification strategy and interrogated you extensively about it probably interrogated a lot of candidates they interviewed about what she thought were the weakest points in each paper. For all you know, she was very happy with how you answered her and has you at the top of the list. That other interviewer who was very positive and upbeat about everything was probably positive and upbeat with everyone. For all you know, he liked other candidates a lot more than you and just thought "I can't see us hiring this candidate, but no reason we can't have a friendly interview".

If you feel like you answered questions particularly well or poorly you can read a little into that. But probably not as much as you think. The question you stumbled over was probably from an interviewer who asked a lot of hardball questions and got a lot of candidates to stumble. And that 10 seconds of stammering is probably a lot more salient in your mind than it is in the interviewers' minds.

Overall, don't read much into the tone of interviews. If the interviewers say something concrete, you can obviously use that information. But if you find yourself saying "wow, I seemed to really get on with those interviewers. That must mean I am likely to get a flyout", you are making a mistake.

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