What’s the biggest mistakes you see people make when preparing for interviews?
What’s the biggest mistakes you see people make when preparing for interviews?
Today’s post is a little different in the sense that it didn’t have a direct question attached from my pile of questions because the base of it comes from another article, long since edited for brevity. (Which is a huge joke because I’m always writing these 1000+ word articles.) But now I’m enhancing the original article with what I’ve learned from running my Work With Me’s.
These past 2 years, I’ve been running some version or another of Work With Me’s, resulting in over 200+ students to date. All WWM’s are centered on resume consultations, but some students are so quick at taking my comments and editing their resumes, that we end up having a lot of time left over. So in those cases, we spend it working on either their job hunting strategy or their interview answers.
For today’s post, I’ll list the common mistakes I see and correct immediately during my students’ interview training sessions. We’ll go over what are the pitfalls I see even some of my best students make.
[Note: We do everything via call, so what I mainly focus on is fixing content and delivery. I don’t try or advocate in correcting things like way of speaking or sitting because I believe that every person has a personal style. So long as you aren’t a visible ball of nervous energy during the interview, you’ll be fine. If you can project confidence and calmness, you’ll be great.]
[Additional note: Most of this was written in 2019 but I’m attaching it to a 2016 post because that’s where the original came from.]
Here’s the 5 biggest mistakes I see people make when preparing for interviews.
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Please prepare for a phone interview.
For companies with a multi-step hiring process (usually national or international companies), candidates are asked to do 2 types of interviews: the initial phone screening interview and the final in-person interview. Sometimes there’ll be more interviews in between, but they all fall between these 2 types.
The phone interview usually comes first and if you don’t pass it, then you won’t be invited to interview in person. Phone interviews center on both general information about you and situational based questions, meaning that they’re used mainly for weeding out candidates poorly fit for the role than for selecting the best of the best out of all candidates.
I outlined most of what I want to say on phone interviews here.
My 2 main tips:
Don’t focus too much about being the standout candidate through the phone interviews. Just focus on getting your point across clearly and showcasing your communication skills. Also work on being personable, aka not robot like, with your voice so that they like you on both the professional and personal level.
Don’t speak too fast and make sure you outline your answers via the STAR or CAR method because the interviewers have to fill in forms while you’re talking. So if you talk too fast (like me) or your answer is all over the place (which used to be me), then their focus is split and their assessment of you might be unclear. You don’t want to jeopardize your chances.
Story Time: While at summer internship, I did a lot of phone interviews for org positions back home at ADMU, and all they had as reference was my answers to a Google Form plus what they knew of me from others in the org.
I didn’t pass a single one lol. And I’m OK with that because now I get to do amazing work with Barefoot and Microsoft.
But a few weeks back, a senior who interviewed me messaged me asking how I got all the internship and freelance work that I did. She had spotted my LinkedIn and found it puzzling. I never seemed like a strong candidate in the Google Form or the phone interview and I guess the references for me in the org weren’t strong either. I seemed too easygoing and happy-go-lucky. Not the kind of go-getter, grind-all-the-way candidate this particular org favored. [She said it in a relatively polite way but it wasn’t really a polite topic.]
What I want you to take away from this is that org interviews are nothing like real life interviews. If you excel at org interviews, chances are you’re good at giving the answers people want to hear and you’ve got a great reputation already at that org. Make sure that that reputation translateS to actual output for your resume or you’re just wasting your time.
I think another factor is that orgs tend to look for traits conducive to their projects, which is for the most part events. Internship projects usually aren’t centered around event management, so the skill set that they screen for is different. That’s why some people can find great internships but poor org work experience.
[2019 update: I remember that messenger chat, it was a funny screenshot to share around in the end. I thought of adding it here but out of respect to privacy laws, I won’t. Just know that I had a good chuckle while updating this blog post.]
2. Please don’t try to skip over your flaws.
Friendly reminder: You are human. Everyone is. Hopefully everyone applying for that job you’re eyeing is too.
So whenever I prep my students for interviews by asking, 'What’s your greatest weakness?' I always stop the runthrough to lecture them if I hear 'I'm just too much of a perfectionist' or ‘I’m such a workaholic’.
Please. At least attempt some originality if you’re using the ‘strength disguised as a weakness’ trick. Everyone can see right through that and it probably annoys everyone too because it’s not really a weakness.
The best answer is to tell the truth and (here’s the very important part:) explain what steps you have taken to improve said weakness.
For example, I’m great at coming up with new ideas, and I’m excellent at sharing my vision and getting people on board with it. But I’m terrible with follow-through and execution. In an effort to address this weakness, I’ve been taking on more logistical roles that demand constant follow-through and taking an extremely hands-on role with the execution of my latest project (which is running this blog solo).
I have other weaknesses too that I use depending on the job at hand. One thing I know for sure is that my favorite weakness to share is so disarming that it’s borderline charming to the interviewers because I am 98% sure they have never heard it before. We end up having more of a casual conversation after since I maneuver the conversation towards them after.
So get creative with your weaknesses. The more realistic and honest you are, the more charming you might be.
Protip: If you need help figuring out your strengths and weaknesses, take a personality test. I use MBTI and it’s always on point.
3. Please don’t be insincere.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Recruiters interview thousands of people in a year. What makes you think they can’t tell when you’re faking it?
Note that lying about your story is different from you being insincere. Some people will have to lie because they really have no experiences or abilities to speak of, but are sure they can pull it off if given the chance. But insincerity is in you being completely off-putting during the interview.
It comes off as you faking interest but looking like you’d rather be elsewhere. Which is how some people look like when they’re so nervous that they’re zoning out in the middle of the interview.
Be interested. Be present. Be genuine. Prepare well. Breathe. If you’ve done everything you possibly could, you’ll be fine.
My trick for interviews is to get into a better state of mind. Doing so helps me genuinely give off the vibe that I’m cheerful and not desperate to get this job (even if I actually am). Personally, I read a humor book via my phone before going in, so no one knows what I’m reading but they do know that I am reading. And I’m in a great mood once I’m called.
4. Just talk!
My normal talking speed is akin to that of a machine gun’s because my thought process is all over the place. [And that’s why my old IG username was talkslikeamachinegun lol.] One of my mentors at INKOMPASS told me that my speed is a gift when it comes to a pitch or pushing my point, but it’s a curse when I’m being interviewed since it makes me seem nervous even if I’m not. How you talk is just as important as what you talk about.
Be deliberate and careful with your words, but don’t forget that it’s also awkward if you don’t talk enough during your interview. Especially if you’re not giving them the pertinent info. Now is not the time to be shy. Generally interviewers are only supposed to hold up 20-30% of the conversation. The rest of it has to be you. So don’t be afraid to elaborate your answers with examples, so long as it’s still relevant to the question.
If you ever feel that you’re going a bit off tangent, ask your interviewer if it’s okay to talk a little bit about something they said that caught your attention. I use this technique to highlight the fact that I’ve done a lot of millennial/Gen-Z research on my own.
The interview questions are supposed to be guides for the interviewers to learn about you and to expound the conversation naturally. The best interviews feel more like conversations than Q&As so the more relevant material you give the interviewer, the better.
5. Please prepare answers to difficult questions about your job history
If you place something in your resume, you need to be prepared to answer questions about it. Let’s say you place that it took you 7 years to finish college. Be prepared to talk about it. You wrote that you were skilled in certain programming languages. Be prepared to be tested on it. Whatever’s on that paper is fair game for the interviewer to quiz you about.
Story Time: One of my WWM students came to me with a specific problem. She’d been to 5+ final interviews and countless other preliminary interviews, but couldn’t get an offer. She had no idea what she was doing wrong, and she was getting desperate so she hired me.
Together, we went over her resume and her interviews and found the problem. Her resume had a lot to do with writing and activism advocacy, and she was applying for jobs in traditional firms to run operations and finances which seems like a fundamental mismatch at first. She’d make it to the end rounds only to be questioned about her motivations for applying, since most interviewers concluded that she’d be bored doing the kind of work she was applying for.
We worked on her clearly explaining from the start and throughout the interview her motivations and transferable skill set, which made her perfect for her wished-for role. After the sessions, she was able to get job offers from every place she applied to.
As my student learned, your interviewer is coming in with preconceived notions about you that you need to sway your way. Trying to show hiring managers and potential employers that your skills from one job or industry are transferable to another is part of your goals so be prepared with clear cut explanations on how they do so.
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And that’s it for the 5 biggest mistakes I see people make when preparing for interviews. I briefly thought about writing my own interview answers here but then realized it would make this article unbearably long. Let me know if ever you want to see that by turning in a question or too in our contact form.
Good luck! Thanks for reading~
Hi! I’m Justine.
I’m the founder and writer of all things in The Bumpy Career and welcome to Interviews, a slot where I share things I’ve learned over the course of going on dozens of interviews, and helping hundreds of people prepare for theirs, so that you guys don’t have to trial and error this stuff like I did.
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