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I would like to audio record my upcoming in-person interview for several reasons, mostly to review my performance, delivery, and content and also to build a compendium of interview questions (without writing down or recording I cannot memorize questions being asked).

I was wondering if this might repel the interviewers in any way and whether I should do it. There is always a possibility to sit my phone on my binder with discretely started recording but I would rather not hide it.

amphibient
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    I may be more concerned with a reluctance to take written notes. You're not going to be able to walk into every meeting with a recorder. –  Jun 26 '13 at 19:30
  • If your purpose is to improve your interviewing performance, find someone who is prepared to give you a mock interview and record that. – DJClayworth Jun 26 '13 at 21:01
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    "Building a compendium of interview questions" is also a reason why interviewers don't want you to record them. If I have a good interview question (which are harder to think up than you might imagine) I don't want it to be well known as a potential question, as that destroys its value. – DJClayworth Jun 26 '13 at 21:04
  • Memorizing answers to questions tends to be a bad call. It's far better to know what you're talking about and retain the ability to be flexible and accommodate any potential question, especially ones that you don't expect. Best thing you can do is actually take some improv classes. – acolyte Jun 27 '13 at 13:58
  • Hi amphibient, to avoid questions being closed as duplicates, we first recommend doing a search. If you do post, be sure to indicate why the other questions didn't provide you an answer. This is the best way to avoid duplicate closures. Good luck! :) – jmort253 Jun 29 '13 at 02:24

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In terms of how employers are likely to react, not how they should react the reality is that I think it would make most employers very uncomfortable. They would feel like this as they would worry the intent was adversarial in some way such as the candidate thought they might do something illegal and wanted to capture that on tape or simply use the the presence of the tape recorder to deter it, or use the recording later to say you said the job would include some things but not others if you were to be hired.

While there could be a innocent motivation to ask to record it’s so outside the normal range of interview behaviour that asking it would be close to announcing, I'm litigious or high maintenance. Even though the majority of employers have no intention of screwing you over legally or otherwise, they’d still worry about this. Because no one wants to hire an adversarial, litigious or high-maintenance employee.

Michael Grubey
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  • It's a little unfortunate, given @amphibient's inoffensive reasons, but I think you're entirely correct that most employers would take it poorly. I fear that I would, certainly. – Carson63000 Jun 27 '13 at 01:15