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It's a bit like the good-books/bad-movies phenomenon.

There's a quality-distribution of both books and films.

There are only so many good books. And a percentage of films end up poorly made.

Sufficiently low-quality books tend not to get made into films. The ones that succeed are notable --- there's nothing but upside.

A good book can be made into either a good or a bad film. If it's a good film, then yay, but if it's a bad film, people are aware of it (through the book's quality and popularity). This is a perception illusion called Berkson's Paradox. It's an illusion because what awareness fails to account for are all the bad films made from bad books.

Hannah Fry of Numberphile does a much better job than I of explaining this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FUD8h9JpEVQ

In the interviewing / performance case, you have good vs. bad interviewees, and good vs. bad performers.

Someonehone who interviews poorly but performs well is a positive exception. Someon who interviews well and performs well meets expectations. It's the good interviewer/bad performer who stands out. But it's the poor-interviewer/poor-performer who is missed by this assessment.




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