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In 2020, Jason Rogers interviewed for his first job out of college. It was a position as a content writer that would be completely remote. The interview would also be conducted remotely, and he decided to use his iPhone instead of his laptop. The front camera is clearer and he wanted more control over the angle, he told MarketWatch.
“I thought I was underprepared, but the setup was more solid than I imagined,” he said. “The pressure was different as well, since holding the device in your hand changes the way you hold yourself in the conversation.”
He got the job.
In the last six years, Rogers said, he has done a handful of job interviews on his phone rather than his computer, and says no recruiter has ever criticized him for it. He is not alone in using his phone to conduct video interviews with prospective employers — but doing so has come under fire recently.
Gen Z TikTok influencer Sophie Rocha recently went viral for calling out the trend among younger workers. After interviewing a job candidate who used their phone, she said she worried that this behavior was just one example of how Gen Z’s “attitude” is harming their job prospects.
“[L]ost faith in our generation after this interview tbh LOL,” she wrote. Her post was met with a barrage of heated comments.
“If this is my competition I’m confused why I’m still unemployed,” one read.
“I’m a recruiter and I set a candidate up with a hiring manager and she took the Zoom interview from her bed,” said another, apparently horrified, commenter.
While both phones and laptops now have high-quality cameras, the formatting is a dead giveaway that you’re not on a laptop, says Melissa Marcus, a career coach who worked as a recruiter for 20 years.
“Every time someone joins from their phone, they are in that vertical format, and you can absolutely tell,” she said. “You show up on a really small screen — how you would show up for a FaceTime.”
And because smartphones have been viewed as more for personal use, while desktops and laptops are more for work, there is a risk that a recruiter might be turned off by a candidate using a smartphone.
“Joining from your phone is incredibly disrespectful,” Marcus said. “In this job market, interviews are precious. I don’t think the phone gives you the best ability to make a connection with the individual you’re interviewing.”
It’s already a fraught time for younger applicants, including the 20-something job hunters doing interviews on their phones instead of on a computer. Their unemployment rate is higher than the national average, there’s concern that artificial intelligence is taking over entry-level jobs, and teens and college students aren’t working nearly as much as they used to — meaning that younger workers aren’t getting the crucial experience that those jobs often provide.
They’re also looking for jobs at a time when AI has upended the job search. AI filters block candidates whose résumés don’t contain certain key words, and the traditional cover letter no longer gives candidates as much of a leg up as it once did.
Postpandemic workplace habits
A vast majority of companies (93%) said that after switching to virtual interviews during the pandemic, they planned to continue to conduct job interviews remotely, according to 2024 data — which means applicants have to make a choice about which device allows them to come across as most professional.
So why are Gen Z candidates making the choice to interview on their phones, and how much does it really hurt their chances of getting hired?
Many recent graduates entered the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when the line between personal and professional life was often blurred. Employees of all ages attended meetings remotely while holding crying babies or with pajama-wearing roommates in the frame.
Using a phone instead of a laptop to take a job interview is not only a sign of a shift in workplace culture, it’s also emblematic of Gen Z’s relationship with devices. When you’ve had a smartphone for most of your life, it becomes an integral part of how you work, said Lindsay Boccardo, a career coach who works with Gen Z employees specifically.
“This has more to do with the technology they grew up with rather than a sign of respect,” she said. The iPhone debuted in 2007, when the eldest members of Gen Z were about 10 years old. And while 90% of U.S. households own a smartphone, only 81% have a laptop, according to data from the Census Bureau.
People in lower income brackets also are more likely to have a smartphone than a laptop or desktop computer, according to data from Pew Research Center. While 92% of those earning $100,000 or more have a laptop, only 59% of those earning under $30,000 do.
But as more companies clamp down on remote work, using a smartphone for a job interview could signal to an employer that a candidate may be less willing to follow traditional workplace rules, like showing up in the office five days a week — while following those rules might give young workers an edge over their peers.
Mirror and match your audience
What device you use for a job interview could signal to a recruiter how you’d adapt to the environment and culture you are seeking to enter.
“I always advise folks that you need to understand the industry you’re going into and what the norms are,” Boccardo said.
If you are interviewing for a social-media manager position at a startup company, for instance, using your smartphone for the first few interviews might read as totally appropriate and even savvy to a fast-paced company that values cutting-edge thinking. But if you are interviewing for a job as a hedge-fund manager, that likely won’t be the case.
Still, Boccardo’s standard advice to recent grads is to “be on a laptop, in a quiet place with good lighting and good audio.”
Megan Slabinski, a hiring expert at staffing agency Robert Half said that while using a handheld device isn’t necessarily an immediate red flag, “it’s preferable wherever possible to take a video interview from a laptop or desktop. You treat it like an in-person interview, and that’s harder to do when you’re on a smartphone.”
But the most important thing is that applicants “mirror and match the audience,” she said — noting that the more similar you appear to those at the company, the better chance you have of being hired.
The industry also matters
Rogers believes interviewing using his phone didn’t create any problems for him primarily because of his industry.
“In content writing and digital marketing, a phone is not out of the ordinary, because those roles are based on remote tools,” he said. “The expectation for formality is different in law or finance.”
Still, older generations in any industry might judge a job candidate who shows up to an interview via their phone as unprofessional.
“There are a lot of unspoken rules around professionalism that older generations carry from pre-COVID,” Boccardo said.
These changing rules have prompted myriad workplace debates: Is it OK to wear shorts to an interview? How many days per week do you actually need to show your face in the office? How should employers respond to Gen Z’s ethical concerns about their work having a positive impact and aligning with their social values? Those who entered the workforce long before the pandemic tend to lean more traditional on most of these issues.
“You don’t know the generation of the person interviewing you, so the safer bet is to err on the side of being more professional versus less professional,” Slabinski said.
When professionalism is subjective, adopting what might seem like outdated norms is probably the smarter move.
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