Deadly sins during job interview

Should you trust me?

I'm working in HR for over 4 years. Previously I took part in several dozen job interviews as a candidate. You can find a lot of advices in Internet according to outfit, gesticulation, time-keeping or what should you do with received business card. In my opinion these aspects are so obvious, that it is not necessary to write anything more about this. Trust me, you can do a lot of worse things, than being 5 minutes late or put business card into your pocket without reading it.

I would like to write about some suicidal acts during job interview.

• Totally lack of knowledge about your potential employee

This is first aspect which allow recruiter or hiring manager to judge if you really want to work in their company or you just don't want to work in your current job any more or your mum forced you to switch off your Xbox and find a job. Moreover it's disrespectful. The worst thing in my contacts with candidates is, when I have some phone call with them before a meeting and I tell them in details what is the core activity of my company. So, when I meet them face to face I like to ask them, one more time, what we are doing. When they still doesn't know, I'm really starting to doubt in their intellectual skills.

• Inability to talk about your current work

Sometimes candidate made some wrong decision in the past and has a work, which bring him no satisfaction. These days it's relatively easy to change career path. Recruiters knows, that lack of knowledge about new work could be covered by hardworking and good attitude. But, for God's sake, how would you like to learn new things if you aren't able to speak any details about your current job, you haven't any idea about business process, tools and your current everyday duties.
The worst script looks like that:
Recruiter: Tell me about your daily routines
Candidate: I'm starting at 8 AM, drinking coffee, talk to friends, then I turning on my PC and reading e-mail. At noon I have lunch.
R: OK, what tools do you use to analyze data?
C: It's hard to explain it to someone, who doesn't working with us.
R: I understand, what was your biggest mistake at work?
C: I really don't remember.

So, really? The core of candidate's work is drinking coffee and reading e-mails. He doesn't even try to describe specific of his work and he received such simple tasks, that he doesn't even risk a mistake.

• Not answering the questions directly

Of course sometimes it's hard to give direct answer, sometimes some introduction is absolutely necessary, sometimes you need to cover a little your lack of knowledge or experience. However it doesn't justify the largest digression sequence in the world. If you can't or don't wont to (both options are really, really bad) answer questions, recruiter can deduce, that you can not listen carefully or, even worse, you are the person who would be difficult team member, unable to being focused, cooperate and good team player.

• Not having any question

Even if you red job advertisement carefully, your parents or friends are working in the company in which you are on job interview, you can be 100% sure, that you don't know everything about this place. Maybe you like challenges, can fit in every place and being effective in every conditions, but having no questions could be perceived as a sign of ignorance. In addition, asking proper question could be great possibility to gather information about expectations and allows you to gain skills which give you occasion to impress your boss from the first day. It's truism, but proper questions from candidate are as important as given answers.

That's all folks

Probably I will extend this list, soon but at this moment if you are making all these mistakes, you are doomed to failure. Eliminating each of these points, you are making big step forward and your chances to make good impression on recruiter grows as much as blockbuster's incomes during opening weekend in cinemas.

#jobinterview #carrier