4) Employers put too much weight on interviews, and too little weight on references

A key part of every hiring process I've ever been a part of — both as the applicant and as the employer — is the job interview. And I've never felt very good about it. Don't job interviews bias you toward gregariousness? Is there any real reason to believe shy employees perform worse than extroverted ones?
"I think you can learn some useful things from an interview," Hoffman says. "You just have to be clear about what it is you're actually trying to learn. I think you can learn about chemistry and fit. I think you can learn about a person's immediate response to a challenge. But if you told me, 'Pick one — you could either get references or an interview,' I would pick references every day of the week.
"I advise all the companies that I affiliate with to take reference checking very seriously. References actually tell you how people work, what their work ethic is. That is a critical piece of data that cannot be put aside or done casually. Frequently employers are so casual about references they either a) don't check them, or b) only check the ones the prospective candidate gives them. In fact, you want both those references and others."