Avoid These Common Interview Mistakes
Good news! We live at a time of record employment growth! Currently, the market is flooded with potential jobs. But even with a strong job market, the right job won’t just show up on your doorstep. You need to write a better resume, create an effective cover letter, and improve your LinkedIn profile. And while you’re doing all that, it’s also a good idea to let your network know that you’re looking for a new job. All this effort is simply to get your foot firmly in the door and secure an interview.
Getting to the interview is challenging, so you need to make the most of the opportunity. Avoid these common interview mistakes.
Dressing Inappropriately
COVID changed a lot about how we do business. Even today, many people still work from home at least part of the time. One side effect of this change is that business professional dress has largely gone out the window. Thanks to Zoom and other video conference platforms, it’s now possible to only dress for work from the waist up, and many people have stopped worrying about wrinkles altogether. They can’t be seen through most monitors, right?
Do this instead: Even if you’re interviewing for a remote job, you still need to make sure you’re dressed just as you would if you were going to work from the office. The way you dress for an interview is important because that’s part of your overall presentation as a potential employee. Appropriate dress shows that you take the opportunity seriously and that you will be a dependable employee.
Coming to the Interview Unprepared
Anyone looking for a new job has an amazing array of information to process. It’s easy to get confused about or even forget the title and duties of the job you’re interviewing for. Some people even forget who they’re interviewing with and what the company does.
Do this instead: Read and re-read about the company and the job before you go into the interview. You’ll get extra points if you come up with pertinent questions to ask the interviewer. Remember, you’re interviewing them too!
Being Unfamiliar with your own Resume
One of the most powerful pieces of job search advice is to tailor your resume to the job you’re interested in. That doesn’t mean that you should lie on your resume, rather, you should highlight the parts of your experience that best matches the job you’d like to get. For example, if your current job is in marketing and you’d like to become a copywriter, you should update your resume to emphasize how much copywriting you’ve done. However, this won’t work if you forget what resume you submitted to the employer you’re interviewing with, making it difficult to show why you’d be a good fit for the job and possibly giving the wrong impression.
Do this instead: Re-read both the job description of the position and the resume you submitted before going into the interview. Make notes to remind yourself of the points on your resume and in your background that you’d like to highlight.
Speaking Negatively about your Current Job
Every time you interview for a job, you’re going to be asked why you’re looking for a new position. You may be tempted to be painfully honest about just how awful your current job, boss, or co-workers are, but that would be a huge mistake. After all, the person who asks that question may be a potential boss or co-worker, and they’re naturally going to wonder what you’ll say about them.
Do this instead: Honesty is a virtue, but it’s possible to overdo it with the ugly truth. Instead of being blunt, take this question as an opportunity to show just how polite and diplomatic you can be.
Let Optimum Staffing Solutions Guide You
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