In a recent post I mentioned that I decided to go through a job interview I otherwise would not have taken, due to methylphenidate (MPH) kicking in. This was about a month ago. In the meantime, I have systematically explored how MPH affects my interview performance or my general willingness to even go through an interview.

For those of you who do not work in the “knowledge industry” or those who have not been interviewing for a new role in a while, I first want to briefly outline the process. There are obviously differences between companies, but you normally face a multi-step approach. First, you speak to an internal recruiter, or an external headhunter, about general fit for the role. At this point, they have seen your CV and think that you are a potential fit, which they want to confirm by talking to you. This is followed by some kind of assessment, perhaps a case study or a competency-based interview, before you speak with the hiring manager and, optionally, some peers. Once you have made it past the competency-screen, the assumption is that you can do the job. The remaining question is basically whether people think you would be a good culture fit. This is often just b.s. but there are certainly cases where an otherwise competent candidate would simply not fit the environment. I am sure that this part of the interview process has never been used to discriminate against white men. In short, in a typical interview process you go from being a possible fit, to being apparently qualified to do the job, to being someone the team might want to work with. They obviously have multiple candidates and the final choice is subjective to some extent.

My problem with interviews has often been the very first recruiter screen because I find them incredibly tedious. You commonly speak to someone who only has a slight understanding of the kind of work you do. As you get more senior, this becomes less of an issue as you speak to more experienced recruiters but for junior or mid-level positions you sometimes deal with a level of idiocy that is hard to stomach. There really are recruiters who ask you what your favorite color is or why. At the height of George Floyd mania, a popular question was about your level of “allyship” for underrepresented minorities. I even know of a tech company that had gotten so cucked by HR that there was an interview just on DEI topics before they let you progress further.

Before MPH, I did well in interviews when people clicked with me, and not so well otherwise. This did not bother me much. Of course, your options are a bit more limited this way. This was also not optimal because the HR drone is not necessarily representative of the people you are going to work with. Yet, it was not so uncommon that I tried making the recruiter feel uncomfortable. At that point, I had already decided that I was not really interested in working for their company. Even if I did not do that, I used to have the problem that it is difficult for me to hide when I am bored. At the extreme, this means that I have to suppress yawning. On MPH, these problems completely go away and the HR screen is just that, an HR screen. I answer their questions, sometimes even banter a bit, and psychologically manipulate them here and there so that they feel good about themselves. My success rate for the HR screen has shot up quite significantly due to MPH, which is what I had expected.

The technical screen is also easier on MPH. In my field, there are certain standard topics that are being covered, sometimes in a more open-ended nature. When you interview via a video call, you can take some notes and refer to them later but in-person this is sometimes perceived as awkward, primarily because you break the flow of the conversation this way. The MPH-induced hyperfocus, on the other hand, means that your need or mere desire to take notes is greatly diminished. This morning I had an interview in which the guy, at the beginning, asked me to keep a few aspects in mind during the discussion and this was trivial to do. I have conducted this particular type of interview myself and I am very familiar with candidates requiring a reminder regarding such remarks. Not so on MPH. Another implication is that you can much more easily lead the conversation, sometimes for almost the entire time. This is the difference between saying, “…and now let me go back to this or that point you mentioned earlier”, instead of the interviewer having to remind you, or perhaps they will not even do that because they are looking for any justification to mark you down.

I recently also had an on-site interview with future peers, for which I had to travel. This entailed three hours of interviews with five people, in changing configurations. Such interviews can be daunting as they are partly also a test of your endurance. In the past, these were not always easy for me because it is a lot more difficult to hide that you are getting bored when you are in the same room as your interviewer or interviewers. After all, your body language is on full display. I took one MPH capsule about fifteen minutes before the first interview, but I could not eat enough. When you are a visitor at a company, there is normally a chaperone with you at all times, and it was not feasible for me to eat two or three sandwiches on the toilet. Instead, I took the pill with a sip of water, had a few bites, and then I left the bathroom again. The consequence was that the substance release curve was shifted. The effects of MPH kicked in a bit sooner, but tapered off at around the 3.5 hour mark already. Time just flew by and I thought I had done quite well. Then I felt that I had been sitting in this room for quite some time, but did not want to look at my phone or look around for a wall clock. This was after the three-hour mark. However, I clearly noticed that it took me some willpower to remain focused and attentive. At around that time, one of the remaining interviewers had remarked that we are already well above time, which I had been completely unaware of. He liked talking to my MPH-medicated self, so we kept talking. The remaining twenty or thirty minutes, however, when the effects of MPH had tapered off felt surprisingly long. Thankfully, this guy had a personality type I find it easy to get along with, so this went well.

As I am typing this, I am reminded of a Reddit discussion on the side effects of Ritalin, one of the brand names of MPH, I read a while ago. Someone had dryly remarked that a side effect is that it helps him keep his job. I do not think this was intended as a joke. A few months into my MPH-fueled lifestyle, it is quite obvious to me that you simply get a lot more done on this drug, time just flies, and you do not get bored. In fact, you do not get bored no matter what you do. The bigger issue is obviously whether office work is suitable for us, and a very good argument can be made that it is not. Yet, if wage cucking in an office is what you do for a living and you have the problem that your environment is not stimulating enough, then MPH offers a very good solution or at least an excellent band-aid. I want to add, in case there is some drive-by commenter who accidentally or deliberately misreads what I wrote: I do work that is seen as quite demanding. Not a lot of people can do it. Nonetheless, it is a lot less intellectually stimulating than I would like. With MPH I can just plow on.