If there’s anything HR professionals and recruiters enjoy more, it’s swapping horror stories about the pathetic candidates that have just graced their premises and interviewed for a position. Laughs are a mile a minute when the stories start flying fast and furiously…
To wit: Did you hear the one about the candidate who arrived with a McDonald’s Fish fillet in a bag…complete with fries and proceeded to chow down in front of the interviewer? Or how about the one where the candidate whipped out his cell phone and actually ANSWERED it in the middle of a question?
Sheesh! You would think that the above would be common sense! Evidently, some of the population has less common sense than the rest! Finding a job is no picnic and as the saying goes you’ll have to date a few frogs before you find your prince. But it will help if you don’t make the OBVIOUS errors… (List follows.)
1. Never take it upon yourself to light up a cigarette. (Don’t even THINK about asking to do so either.
2. Don’t refer to the person with whom you’re interviewing by name if you can’t pronounce it! Better to stick with ‘ You’ than to make a mistake on his/her last name.
3. Don’t wear sunglasses to your interview unless you have a medically related condition and can prove it. This is just SO-O rude! (Ditto on the Bluetooth: leave it home, please.)
4. Don’t jump immediately to your question about what the job pays. All things in good time, and you should let the employer broach that subject, not you!
5. Don’t rely on someone else to prepare your resume. You’re likely to forget what that person wrote. Therefore, it’s going to look very strange when the interviewer says “I see on page 3 you had experience with blah blah blah and there you are flipping pages frenetically to try to find the reference to blah.
6. Don’t pepper the interviewer with questions. In due course, you can, of course ask them… But NOT all at once!
7. When the interviewer asks you whether you have any questions, don’t just sit there with a blank stare on your face. Consult the list you will have prepared and ask at least one or two intelligent questions.
8. Don’t talk too much: you can talk yourself OUT of a job that way!
9. For goodness sake’s don’t bring along a companion to the interview. This can look to the interviewer as though you needed moral support (and therefore aren’t capable of making your own decisions.)
10. Don’t yawn, fidget, slouch or put your head in your hands during the interview. All of these non-verbal communication types will send a loud and clear message to your interviewer that you really are NOT interested in the position.
11. Don’t use expressions such as “I’m gonna” “ It’s like, you know…..” “Whazz-up , dude?” or any of the other inane slang expressions you use when you’re out with your drinking buddies.
12. Don’t go into a long diatribe about why you lost your last job: it's totally unnecessary and your interviewer will wonder whether there’s more than meets the eye here. (this is called ‘oversharing’ and it does NOT go over well in an interview.)
13. Don’t sit down before your interviewer invites you to do so. (If he somehow forgets, then stand politely for the first 2 minutes and then ASK your interviewer whether you may sit down.)
14. Don’t sprawl you notebook, pen/pencil, calendar and so on all over the interviewer’s desk. Keep your STUFF on your lap… You will be perceived as invading his/her space!
15. If the interviewer holds out his hand and say “I’m Billy Beezelbub” for goodness sakes don’t call him Billy during the interview. (He’s “Mr.” Beezelbub to you…unless, of course he specifically REQUESTS that you call him Billy…
16. Don’t tell jokes during the interview. It shows a lack of seriousness on your part.
17.Don’t look at your watch. Ever. The interviewer will assume that you have something more important to do, and guess who WON’T get that job??
18. Don’t sound as though you’re reading a script. Vary the tone and the cadence of your voice so that the interviewer doesn’t think that you memorized what you are saying.
19. Don’t beg for the job or sound desperate. This tends to make interviewers very nervous.
20. Don’t stare at your interviewer. There’s a happy medium between not looking at him/her at all, and fixing your gaze on him/her such that it becomes uncomfortable.
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