Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Smart Answers To Stupid Job Interview Questions'

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The article, “Smart Answers to Stupid Job Interview Questions”, by Liz Ryan, attempts to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of common interview questions. By establishing the need for change in employee hiring, Ryan’s argument aims to persuade interviewers to alter their questions and urge interviewees to respond in ways out of their comfort zone. Despite Ryan’s clear thesis, I will argue that her use of rhetoric and comical images creates a weak argument for the altering of common interview protocol.

From the beginning of the article, Ryan’s position is exceedingly clear; the current structure of typical interviews is an ineffective form of employee hiring. Considering that this article pertains to employee recruitment, Ryan’s audience is likely …show more content…
Furthermore, Ryan says, “if you give the standard kiss-ass answer you’ll hate yourself in the morning”. While there may be a correlation between interview responses and self-satisfaction, Ryan’s failure to provide statistical grounds results in the hasty generalization fallacy. This fallacy is destructive to her argument, as Ryan loses credibility by jumping to conclusions that lack support. On the other hand, if Ryan provided statistics to prove that answering common interview questions has mental consequences, readers would be more inclined to seek alternative responses and agree with her argument. While some may argue that Ryan’s argument effectively appeals to emotion through insulting language, there is a drastic disproportion between sound advice and attacking language. For example, when providing advice for the question, “where do you see yourself in five years”, Ryan uses four paragraphs to criticise the question and only one paragraph as a call to action. While the four paragraphs effectively make Ryan’s argument clear, it is not enough to simply state your argument without providing logical support. Therefore, despite Ryan’s clear position, her disproportionate and vague evidence greatly hinders the articles
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