Job interviews can be high pressure situations. As stressful as they can be, you don’t want to add to that pressure by making a faux pas or saying something that will be seen as a red flag to your interviewer. The good news is that with some careful foresight, self-control, and patience, you can keep your foot out of your mouth and your eyes on the prize at your next job interview. Before you put on your sharpest meeting clothes, take a moment to read these four things you should never do in an interview.
Don’t Be Negative
There is a time and a place to trash talk, and it’s NOT during a job interview. Refrain from criticizing or being negative about past employers, co-workers, even customers. Consider how in dating most people consider people who slam their ex’s to be a red flag— the same thinking applies in job interviews.
“Interviewers aren’t just evaluating your experience and skills,” said Gina Pinch, Rio Salado College faculty chair for Business, Management, and Public Administration. “They are evaluating what it would be like to work with you. If you sound bitter or negative, they may assume you’ll speak the same way about them someday.”
This can be tricky if you genuinely had a bad experience with your previous employer or were directly wronged by them. Even if that’s the case, a job interview is not the right moment to go in-depth about your difficulties with your former employer. If you must bring up your parting of the ways, frame it in neutral terms as much as you can. Talk about what appeals to you about THIS company you’re applying to; what can you achieve here that you weren’t getting at your previous job? This can be a way to subtly spell out your dissatisfaction about your past work while keeping it positive and present-tense, focusing on your future.
Don’t Be Desperate
This one can be especially difficult. We all need to work to live. Sometimes you may hit a dry spell on a job hunt. You spend months putting out applications and receive only radio silence in return. Finally, you get an interview! A lot is riding on this. You REALLY need this job. But you have to keep all that to yourself because “give me a job because I need a job” isn’t a good enough reason on its own for someone to hire you. Everybody wants a job! Some people who are applying may be in even more dire straits than you.
It’s not just that being too desperate to get the job can make interviewers uncomfortable; it can also put you in a position to be exploited. You may get the job, but you may get it for a much lower salary because the company knows how badly you need it. You have to play just a little hard to get. That gives you leverage to ask questions about your salary and benefits, and push back to ask for more when needed. If you go in with the attitude of “I’ll take anything,” you may end up regretting what they give you.
Don’t Say Too Much
A very common pitfall in job interviews is to over-explain yourself. Keep your answers brief, compelling, and on-topic. Don’t justify anything on your resume unless you’re asked. Take an employment gap, for example: some hiring managers might ask about it. Others will not. But if you volunteer information about it- if you try to preempt that conversation- that may lead them to asking you more questions about it than you want to answer.
Oftentimes we say too much because we’re making assumptions about what the other person wants to hear. You don’t know what the hiring manager is looking for exactly in an interview like this. Trying to guess what their dealbreakers are and getting ahead of them is counterproductive. Be patient and say what you need to say when prompted.
“Silence in an interview is not a problem to fix,” Pinch said. “Once you have answered the question, it is okay to stop and let the interviewer take the next step.”
Don’t Forget to Ask Questions
Job interviews are a conversation. It isn’t all one-sided. It’s important to ask questions because it shows you’re engaged on the topic, you’ve been thinking about what working for this employer would be like, and that you have concerns that are important to you. Some interviewers might tell you up front to hold any questions for the end, or they may favor a looser, back-and-forth conversational dynamic. Ask questions when the time is right.
One reason why asking questions is important is that it gives you a chance to vet your employer. Just as much as they’re trying to figure out if you’re a good fit for them, use this interview as an opportunity to see if they are a good fit for YOU. Do they get offended or weirdly evasive when you ask about compensation? Do they seem annoyed when you ask questions, or wave them off as “we’ll talk about that later?” These can be serious red flags. Don’t ignore them.
Article by Austin Brietta
Career Corner
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