What have you learned from your interview success and failures over the years?

Water Cooler Careers
#1

I thought this might be a nice topic. Share what you have found has really worked, hasn’t worked… Any surprises that have come along the way. I’ll start

When they ask you, “where do you see yourself in 5 years”, you should not say something very unrelated to the job you are interviewing for. I got nixed both times I did that, even though everything else seemed to go great

Realize that the key is being likable over impressing them with the answer to every technical question. I would get so nervous before interviews out of sheer terror that I would embarrass myself by missing a technical question. It would cause me to be stiff and have no personality because I was trying to go over facts/formulas/definitions in my head instead of connecting with the interviewer. A likable guy that gets 80% of the technical questions right will beat a weird person that gets 100% right 9 times out of 10.

there really are no “perfect” answers. Act as if you’re an athlete being interviewed after a game. Relax and just give honest opinions and thoughts. It’s not a verbal test where they give you hoops to jump through and you have to nail to perfect solution to each obstacle. It’s very subjective and ambiguous. It’s more about how you answer a question than your answer being etched in stone as a final answer for the CEO of the company to review and analyze

#2

You can really never know enough about a company that you are interviewing with.

I’ll say it twice.

You can really never know enough about a company that you are interviewing with.

When I was unemployed and desperate about 10 years ago, I was using a temp service to get terrible operations gigs. I got sent on an interview and called the temp service when I was done to let them know how it went. The woman I was working with asked me if I wanted to take another interview that day and I said sure. I went to the 2nd interview having only an address and a name, nothing more.

The job was in sales, something I’ve never done, and I honestly couldn’t tell you today what it was we’d have been selling. I had a great conversation with the HR recruiter and she really seemed to like me. Without flattering myself, I think she was more interested in me than my job skills. Perhaps she was touched as a child, or perhaps it was the suit that I wore to my high school graduation, pulled out of retirement for this day of interviewing for $12 an hour jobs in the shame factory, but whatever the reason, I was her kind of candidate.

Our conversation is done and she goes to talk to the owner of the company. It was a small firm, maybe 50 people from what I could tell, and it was in a pretty nice area of town. She returns and says that she told the owner about our conversation and how well it went, and if I have time, he’d love to talk to me.

Things were going great.

I sit down in the owners office and he begins grilling me about my resume. He asks why I dropped out of my first college, why I haven’t finished at my second college and why I’m unemployed. The honest answer was probably drugs, alcohol and apathy in some order, but I spun my best BS and kept going.

Next, he asked me to explain their business model. Keeping in mind, I didn’t know this company existed until 90 minutes prior to this quesion, I told him that I had no idea and explained that I was called to interview for the job while leaving another interview, and that I view every interview as worthwhile. And that wasn’t BS, I’m usually willing to sit and interview for any job. He felt quite a bit differently. He told me I was wasting his time. If hacksaw had been part of the parlance of the times, he would certainly have invoked it with respect to my credentials. He began berating me about the selectivness of their staff, and that he has personally signed off on the hiring of every person in the building, and that I was clearly not going to make the cut.

I walked out, yelled “thanks for the time asshole” and never heard from them or the temp service again. I’m not particularly proud of my behavior, but I also feel that he probably should have just told me that they were looking for a more experienced candidate and moved on.

#3

Key: interview = sales pitch

a lot of the same skills are required.

#4

Well I guess one tip that I learned the hard way

If you honestly don’t know something, don’t try to fucking BS it. The guy sitting across the table from you is sitting there because he can tell you’re full of it.

#5

Like most things in life, likability is equally if not more important than your resume.

When they ask you if you have experience in, or have ever done certain things, say yes. If the answer is really no, say yes and then tell them about how you did something different that required the same skillset.

Know the role of the person you’re interviewing with and tailor your questions to that person’s position. For example, ask the CEO high level questions about the business. Ask the lower level people more granular questions about the day to day.

#6

double

#7

Be early/on time. Scout out a route to the office the day before if you have to.

#8

^ That’s the least of most people’s problems.

#9

^ hahaha indeed

#10

you’d be surprised. all in all, I’d say 1 in 5 show up late.

#11

Someone that shows up late wasnt going to be a serious contender anyway. No good candidate shows up late with the exception of extreme, rare circumstances like a car wreck or something

#12

Agree. If they show up late for no valid reason, there’s probably a thousand other reasons why they’re not employable.

#13

Be thoroughly prepared about the entire process of how you get the job done. Have few detailed examples of what problems or issues you encountered, how you solved by reaching out to folks, perhaps calling meeting, escalating the issues or some thorough root cause analysis. Take risks. If there are areas important to the job but you feel you are weak but you do not have deep experience, research to the extent possible and appear like a pro! It can be easy if you are interviewing for the same role you are in now or tough if you are stretching.

#14

Actually, the main reason i’m saying this is because of a recent experience. My boss and I were both interested in meeting a candidate as they had a good CV and feedback from HR 1st round was great. 20mins before the interview is due I start looking over the CV again and working with colleagues to figure out the best questions to ask. 10mins to go and I get sent down to the meeting room to get things ready. 10 mins pass… nothing.

We call up reception to see if the dude is just sitting there and they forgot to send him, nope, not there. Another 10 minutes pass and we give up and go back to work. My boss is in the middle of typing up the rejection email to HR when the phone rings and dude has arrived 25 minutes late. Boss is pissed at this point but we go down anyway to meet the guy. He explains he was stuck on the underground without signal so couldn’t call ahead, and proceeds to nail the interview. My boss was not interested though, he kept grilling the poor guy on stuff that doesn’t matter and ripping into him at any given opportunity, it was clear he had no intention of hiring him. It’s a shame as I think he was a good candidate, bar the lateness.

Couple of my firends/acquaintances have been dinged for being late before as well. I’d rather not risk it.

#15

I’ve learned a few things:

  1. It is a fine balance between appearing arrogant and confident in your abilities. One time it really just seemed like the guy interviewing me felt like I was a little sh!t who knew it all.

  2. Body language is important. Always sit up straight and don’t cross your legs in my opinion. On time I did the ankle on the knee thing because I was in some guys corner office and I needed to make a table to take notes. I’m pretty sure that douchebag took offense for some reason.

  3. Some people are just not going to like you. One time I had really good interviews and they flew me across the country for an interview with like six people, but mostly just one big time guy that I needed to meet. The role would’ve definitely been a stretch for me (pretty senior), but the guy that interviewed me just didn’t like me from the get go and I could tell. Not sure why. Maybe he had somebody else in mind or maybe he didn’t like right coasters or white dudes or maybe I didn’t kiss his ass enough or who knows. The fit probably wasn’t right for either of us. I’m not good at obsequious

So, I’ve learned there is a good amount of chance involved, at least for me.

#16

^ I’ve had that two times. As soon as the person saw me, I could tell he didn’t like me for whatever reason. Didn’t bother to make much eye contact, handshake was barely a handshake, seemed like he totally didn’t care. I actually crushed all his questions, but at the end, he didn’t even bother make eye contact when saying goodybe.

#17

I run into this from time to time as well. I intimidate people, especially small guys. It’s not intentional, but I’m huge and I have a booming voice and I’ve gotten a very strong compensating/inadequacy vibe from a number of people I’ve interviewed with. I’m not so arrogant to think that every time I don’t get a job it’s because I was just too commanding of a presence or anything, but there have been several instances where I was getting consistent good vibes and then a guy with little man syndrome comes into the interview and the feeling changes quite quickly.

#18

It can definitely happen to anyone. You can do absolutely everything right and still not be liked. That’s just how it goes. Gotta remember to not beat yourself up over it and remember that you did the best you could do.

#19

I’ve had that problem too as well as people being intimidated by my education. Also people who think my education sucks. Also wearing clothes that are too expensive, clothes that aren’t expensive enough, etc.

I said likability is important earlier, and there are things you can do to be more likable, but at the end of the day, some of it is out of your control.

#20

I have concluded from the interviews I attended (long time back) that getting the offer /assignment is more of tossing the coin affair. Despite best interaction and smooth sailing you may not get through while for some other which seemed to be just average with no special hope for success turns out to be successful. It is just a matter of coincidence that your vibes and that of the interviewer’s matched and your response matched their expectations. Astonishingly in some cases the moment you enter the arena you get the feeling, ‘this is not for me’ ( I don’t know the cause for such sudden premonition though - sixth sense?). This happens to be my feeling from the instances more than a decade and half earlier, now competition being tougher on one hand and getting really deserving candidate being tougher (which I know as an interviewer) it may have changed.