It’s honestly weird that you have to go through a formal interview just to get a job folding clothes or flipping burgers. These positions are meant to be flexible and entry-level — they shouldn’t be treated like corporate roles. If someone is willing to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work, that should be enough.
We’re not talking about hiring a doctor — it’s a short-term, hourly position. Let people earn money without jumping through unnecessary hoops.
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A lot of these jobs still require working with the public to some extent. The potential employer needs to see how a person’s demeanor is before sending them to represent the company.
I wouldn’t hire anyone without interviewing them first.
You need to make sure the person will respect your business and treat your customers properly. You need to make sure they are hardworking, loyal, trustworthy, etc.
What would your proposal be to learn more about a potential hire?
How do you know if someone is going to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work if you don’t get a feel for them first?
Maybe they want to weed out people who will make their lives miserable?
I’ve seen hires without thorough vetting go horribly through the years, like destroying equipment to get off work bad. Now I’m the one hiring, and there is no way I’d sign off on hiring someone without meeting them and taking references. Wouldn’t even do for retail or fast food.
the whole point of the interview is to make sure they can “show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work”. in most states it’s an annoying and expensive process to fire someone and opens you up to lawsuits. there is a difference between “no experience needed” and having manners, timeliness, being friendly and able to speak to the public.
There’s something to be said about these minimum wage jobs being crazy about the application process, requiring quizes, references, etc etc. They still should have an interview, but they also need to calm tf down
This is indeed an unpopular opinion
Interviews make sense, but credit and background checks for entry level positions do not.
*Edit: Folks, the sex offender registry is a completely different beast than regular criminal background checks, it’s its own thing and completely public, plus people on it are required to notify everybody and their grandma that they’re on it.
Cash handling positions that aren’t management are very difficult to steal from, since registers are counted down at the end of shift and have cameras on them, and any amount over too few dollars worth stealing (like $3) is flagged. Have any y’all saying “But theft!” ever worked as a cashier? Everyone I’ve ever seen get fired for stealing money from the till was found out and fired immediately, or they were management in charge of counting the drawers and got away with it for some time until they were eventually found out. Management isn’t entry level, run background checks on management candidates, sure.
A fair or worse credit rating shouldn’t keep
someone from gaining employment at basic entry level jobs, nor should a stint in jail, plenty of people have gone to jail for things that aren’t theft, violence, or sex crimes.*
Are the unpopular opinions or just really low iq ideas
Interviews go more than one way. We use the chance to find out if there’s a better fit within the company for the person. Are you a happy bubbly klutz? Maybe you would be a better fit for the customer-facing side of the business. Like to keep a headphone in and keep to yourself? Maybe you’d rather work in the kitchen. Interested in taking a managerial route? Let’s see what responsibilities we can give you to prepare you for those roles.
Also, if you don’t show up to an interview, then I’ve saved myself a substantial amount of time and paperwork that I would’ve wasted hiring you and then finding out you’re not dependable.
You post explains exactly why you have to interview. If they don’t show up to the interview on time they won’t show up to work on time.
“If someone is willing to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work, that should be enough.” How are you going to find out if any of these things are true without an interview?
The people won’t show up, they might stink or be strung out on heroine, they could be super unprofessional or not speak English… You’re acting like the job doesn’t have any basic requirements.
What if they had holes in their shoes and nasty toes sticking out or they sagged their pants ?
This is less an opinion and more confused childlike innocence.
You need to screen people for basic competency. Once you actually get a job it’ll be fairly obvious not everyone can handle even a basic job.
I helped run a very successful garden center for quite a few years and getting people who could follow basic instructions and didn’t need to be babysat was nearly fucking impossible. Though part of that was the stingy store owner offering shit pay.
If you hired a maid for your house, with this ideology, you wouldn’t look into them? You wouldn’t be worried if they are thieves, did a poor job, had terrible reviews, and such?
Also as someone that would go to an interview, if I was told “there is none”, I wouldn’t want to work there anyways. I want to also get a feel for them. Knowing also that no one else got an interview, chances are the people I would be working with will be maybe or maybe not awful staff.
Tell me you’re not a business owner without telling me you’re not a business owner.
Those jobs are harder than “flipping burgers and folding clothes”.
I do agree that they are used as entry-level jobs, but they are not “skill-less” jobs.
I worked fast food and got burnt by a fryer basket bc the person holding it was a nepo-hire.
Been a while since I’ve seen an objectively wrong opinion
This isn’t unpopular it’s just stupid
Im guessing you have never hired people.
Lots of people lie and/or are completely out of their mind. Showing up late for an interview says a lot. Showing up with no self awareness says a lot. Not being able to communicate is person says a lot. Not being presentable in front of a customer is a no go.
I had a guy call me dude during an interview for a consulting position. There is no way im letting him near clients. Ive had a girl show up with her tits popping out and get offended that i asked if she thought that was a good outfit choice (position was business analyst).
This is why it is called the eyeball test or sniff test.
Well you just said it….how can a manager even know someone can show up on time and do the basics? Think about it, interviews vary in intensity.
If I’m hiring for a cashier or sales associate at a retail store, then an interview already gives me insight if that person is going to be reliable or a pain in the ass.
First way is did they show up on time to their interview. They were 5 minutes late, well does that mean I’m going to have to constantly write them up for not getting to work on time? Are they at least dressed business casual. Gen Z apparently had a problem with understanding what professional attire means and I’ve been shocked at what some have shown up to for part time positions I hire for. If you can’t show up in jeans, a polo shirt (tucked in) and some neutral tennis shoes (even though I’d prefer business shoes) then will i have a problem with you showing up to work in the attire I tell you is needed at work?
Then just answering basic questions. Too many young adults have poor communication skills. Of i ask you to tell me about yourself and you can’t even give me a smooth and flowing response then how the hell can I expect you to talk to customers?
So you see why an interview is still necessary? It gives insight as to how you will be as am employee and turnover is expensive. To just blindly hire any Tom, Dick and Harry who walks in the door is asking to constantly be hiring more than retail already does
“Don’t interview me, it’s entry level work, the easiest of the easy.”
“We demand more than $15 an hour. Our job is so difficult.”
I feel old.
Why do y’all think these aren’t real jobs?
You’ve definitely never tried to hire for one of those positions. There are a lot of people that get turned away even from entry-level jobs.
This is a very strange take. No matter the job, you still need to form an impression of the person you’re hiring. There are some wild lunatics out there.
Start your own business with no interviews and let us know how it goes.
Broooo. I cannot tell you how many employees we roll through before you get someone who is even somewhat competent enough to tie their shoes show up on time and remember the process for recording your hours… people are dumb and lazy. I mean think of how dumb and lazy the average person is. Half the planet is worse than that.
Trust me I am dumb and lazy and I am absolutely blown away by how many people make me look like an over achieving go getter. Retail is stressful and fast food is fast paced repetitions that do require you to be able to remember a lot of little details quickly. I have been through countless interviews were I was shocked the person was able to get themselves dressed in the morning I ain’t hiring that
I resisted the urge to downvote this opinion.
Just because you have the ability to do a job doesn’t necessarily mean I want to hire you. There are a lot of really morally shitty people in the world.
From the managers perspective you still need to meet with your potential new employee so you can judge if you think the person will be the kind of person to show up on time and do their job.
I’m the assistant manager at a fast food place, and some of the people that ask to apply are on crack.
As a manager for a major retailer and also does the hiring. Yes it does…it is depressingly sad just how stupid people have gotten. I don’t want my employees time being wasted hiring someone who is literally not gonna be able to do the job, while I can’t tell right off on everyone, I can at least filter some of the nonsense out of my work.
Many people can’t hold down even minimum wage jobs so yeah an interview is needed. You’d be surprised how many just can’t and will quickly be exposed by asking a few questions shoot many won’t even show up. It’s not a perfect system but you will dodge a lot of bullets that way as a business owner. Just taking on anyone would just straight you put many businesses out of of business. Bad employees legit cause your business to lose money even if they aren’t outright stealing from you which happens often as well.
considering the fact that fast food workers have to handle equipment that can easily injure and disfigure people, i think it is VERY important for the managers/owners to know EXACTLY who is on their team and if they are competent enough.
Well if anything the interview could be a test to ensure they actually arrive on time for it
You also need to ensure they have basic comprehension skills
I mean.. interviews kinda make sense especially in customer service positions like what you described. If you can’t talk to someone through an interview, how can you be hired to work around people on a daily? Like I have definitely BOMBED some interviews and been great at others. If you can’t carry yourself well in public or in a transaction situation, why tf would you be hired to get paid for one?
so how many interviews did you bomb before drawing this conclusion?
This is just a shitty take and very insulting.
Just because it’s an entry level job doesn’t mean it does not require certain characteristics or abilities.
Pretty short sighted, what if that person wants to go for a management role, you wouldn’t interview them?
Or also, I don’t know about you but I usually work low wage jobs for a couple years or so depending, you’re just gonna pull me off the street not knowing even my name and hire me to be at your job for years?
So… If you have multiple people apply, what do you do?
Not all retail is entry level
How diminishing to hospitality and service jobs.
I hate the mentality that retail or fast food are casual jobs. It’s still a job that some people will make a career out of. How about we stop looking down on these positions.
I manage a restaurant and I had a guy come in with no resume asking for an interview. He looked oddly familiar but I couldn’t understand why. The interview was strange and he didn’t blink once. He wanted to be a dishwasher.
Turns out he was a local guy who was plastered all over the news for killing animals and went to jail for it. He had a different haircut, gave me his middle name with a different last name. Imagine if I had just given him a chance? When he was released they issued a warning to the public that he was at high risk of offending again.
I understand people can and should be rehabilitated but I’m not taking the risk with serious offenders against my staff. I also hire a lot of young teenagers and I do not want any sort of older losers to be in the environment to cause problems.
This is what interviews are for. To get a general feel of the candidate as best as we can. I’ve hired people with terrible resumes, but in person they were good enough for the job.
This is a horrible fucking take, hell yeah
Housecleaning doesn’t require a lot of skill. Why not just walk go outside and hire a bum to clean your house? Go ahead and give him keys and unsupervised access to your house without asking questions first. Let us know how that goes. We’ll wait.
>We’re not talking about hiring a doctor
Do you think that the hiring process for doctors consists of nothing more than a formal interview?
I don’t think you understand what an interview is lol.
Very stupid opinion
OP thinks he is entitled to a retail job.
You’ve never actually worked retail or fast food before have you?
I’ve had the displeasure of working with the most useless people on earth before. Just because it’s a casual entry level job, doesn’t mean everyone can or should do it.
Tell me you’ve never managed people without telling me you’ve never managed people.
No – they should do interviews but they should be brief and about relevant factors, not stupid gimmicky questions and pronpted lying.
>If someone is willing to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work, that should be enough.
and one way to get a first feel for whether they are is to ask them to come to a specific place at a specific time, after having put in a modicum of effort on their personal grooming. we can call it… an “intra-oculary”
Lots of people talking about verifying they can follow instructions, show up on time, are dependable, etc. fuck that.
I want to know if the person I’m considering for a job is someone that we can all mostly tolerate being around for 8-10 hours a day.
Have you ever met people? Those jobs ABSOLUTELY require an interview.
You’ve obviously never interviewed someone for these positions.
There is a drawer full of cash, just like, sitting there.
You would not believe how many times people could not show up on time, dressed appropriately, answer questions appropriately, etc. one interview is still needed
This take doesn’t really make any sense, if you owned a shop surely you would want to meet the person before you hire them?
As someone with a very easy job at a cinema, even at these jobs there are people who can’t do it. A conversation is definetly nescessary. Some people are not capable of communication with costumers or unwilling to clean or just unable to learn how the cash register works. You overestimate people, some people are really, really stupid.
A lot of jobs require team work and part of the interview is to see if you think they would fit well with the existing team
“Retail” is a broad term and not all of it is entry level. The kind of person who doesn’t feel bothered to put on some clean clothes, meet a potential boss with a smile and talk a little about themselves and their experience doesn’t deserve any job.
It sounds like someone didn’t do well at this entry level interview…
You have never worked fast food.
It is anything but an easy job.
You’re doing interviews wrong. It’s not just for those hiring, it’s for you to see if you even want to work there. I turned down an offer once because the owner came into the room during interview and was treating the manager like shit. Noped out of that one real quick.
When you own your business, you can skip interviews for people you hire.
I would never start a job with no interview. So I don’t get to meet anyone, see my workspace, get a feel for the environment? The only good reason to do it that way is if you’re trying to lure me somewhere to kill me.
You are right. That is an unpopular and a stupid opinion.
>If someone is willing to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work, that should be enough.
From my experience, that’s what these interviews are. It’s basically show up, be presentable and well spoken (or better spoken than the other applicants), and not demonstrate any glaring red flags over the course of fifteen minutes.
nah its necessary, i worked food service and youd be surprised how bad some workers are. late, bad attitudes, slow, lazy – truly, a basic screening is necessary and if you have basic awareness youll pass them EASILY
You don’t think the business should at least meet someone before hiring them?
Hiring is one of the most expensive and time-consuming administrative activities of running a company. A 15-20 minute screening interview for an entry level job is just common sense from a financial and logistic standpoint.
In spite of what the inherent dismissal in this take, hospitality and retail have specific skill sets and not everyone is cut out for them.
I mean, most of those places have the lowest possible bar. Show up to a interview.
That is a truly bad take.
“If someone is willing to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work, that should be enough”
How do I know this without talking to you?
I’ve had people apply for a job at famous Breakfast restaurants and they can’t be there till noon. We opened at 6am close at 2pm…
Ive had guys say during the interview that they have no way of transportation to get to work of any kind….
Ive interviewed hundred of people for jobs serving customers who admit that they hate people and don’t want to talk to anyone…
Of course, ive interviewed hundreds of people who very obviously would never follow directions and were completely untrainable.
And I wouldn’t know anything about these people without an interview.
Hiring someone without an interview is like signing a lease without an in person tour
I guess the interview is just about making sure you’re not a weird psychopath or anything lol
You seriously posting this?
You know, I get what the comments are saying about the necessity of an interview to “prove you can be on time and show up for work”, etc.
But
I work in a professional career – IT – for almost 10 years, and have worked for Fortune 100 & 500 companies since day 1. I still couldn’t get hired for almost any of the minimum wage jobs I was applying to while trying to survive college or the interim between school and getting my first career job.
I’d show up on time, I’d be dressed professionally, and take it seriously – basically I treated them no differently than the interviews I had for the IT jobs I eventually got.
And yet I was rejected constantly for retail positions. I did land one or two eventually, but I suppose my point is, if someone can be trusted to handle IT shit with huge business impact for multi billion dollar companies, why can’t they be trusted to run a cash register?
If the point of the interview is to determine if the potential hire can “handle” the responsibility of….showing up on time and running a fucking cash register, then the interviews are failing, honestly.
On the flip side, I’ve worked with many idiots in IT who shouldn’t have gotten the job. I’m sure they bullshitted and lied their way through the interview fantastically, but they didn’t know basic computer shit despite alleged education and prior work experience. Basically even the way we do interviews for professional career positions at major companies can be hit or miss.
So, while not the point of this sub, I kinda agree with OP. It doesn’t make sense that an entry level minimum wage job can be so hard to get. You’ll see the same position open for weeks or months, even after you’ve interviewed, and you’re left wondering why, because you did everything right.
Dumb af take
You need a vetting process to filter out ppl that will cost u more money than it is worth to hire them in the first place
I feel like you are very sheltered if you feel like you can trust just about anyone off the street to show up to a job, let alone be trusted with your food
Upvoted, because this is definitely unpopular.
Have you considered you are exhibiting the exact combo of laziness and lack of respect for authority that businesses don’t want for short term hourly employees?
I worked at Chick-Fil-A many years ago as a manager and those interviews were 200% necessary. You would be absolutely and truly stunned at who walks in the door/ what they say during the interview. We had:
A guy show up with a Bible who said because he was a Catholic, we were legally required to hire him (he said his mom told him this)
A lady who wanted the job because her ex boyfriend worked at our place and she wanted to be around him again
Guy got fired from the hospital across the street because he kept taking selfies with unconscious patients and posting it on Snapchat
Lady admitted to getting fired from every job she’s ever had. She had already worked 6 jobs and she was 20.
Guy was recently fired from another Chick-Fil-A for stealing the free sandwich coupon receipts. Justified it because he would always give his store a 10/10 review
And many more!!
Last week, I saw a MFR taking a bath in the windshield washer fluid thing at the gas station. Are you saying that he should be able to just finish his bath and walk across the street to Micky Dee’s and sign up to work a shift?
>If someone is willing to show up on time, follow instructions, and do the work, that should be enough.
That requires an interview to figure out.
Not trying to be rude but this is genuinely the dumbest thing I have ever read.
You think shops should hire people… without ever speaking to them?
How is that supposed to work, even?
Somebody could be a total, unemployable weirdo with hella serial killer vibes, and still have a decent enough resume or at least look decent on paper.
Anyone who thinks this has never had to hire someone before. A lot of people out themselves as unreliable in a 30 min conversation.
The interview IS to make sure they can show up and follow instructions.
“Be here at this time, bring 2 forms of ID.”
Imagine the number of people who can’t complete those 2 steps.
It is having two interviews for those jobs that is insane
Sounds like someone didn’t get the job
Even fast food joints need to filter out the truly undesirable employees. You don’t want a meth head stabbing your fry cook.
You would be surprised how horrible some ppl are when working. Even fast food needs to weed people out. If you just show up to the interview you’ll probably get the job
I thought this was unpopularopinion not badopinion or stupidopinion
I mean…have you MET people?
Yes, interviews are very much necessary. And having to have a sit down meeting with someone at the company to talk about yourself and learn what would be expected of you in the job is hardly treating it like a “corporate” role.
This screams “I got turned down for a job at Burger King because they won’t let me come in blazed out of my mind.”
Job interviews are there to get a feel of what you’re like face to face. They already know your qualifications, that’s not what the interview is for.
You have not interacted with the dregs of society.
Honestly, a formal interview is the bare minimum for any job. For good reason.
Do you have any idea how complex the selection and hiring process is for a doctor in comparison? Or most other heavily responsible roles?
If you can’t deal with people in a meeting, how are you going to deal with people for a living?