5 Interviewing Mistakes I've Seen

When preparing for an interview, presentation is key:

• Dress the Part: Ensure your clothes are clean and professional. Making a polished impression is crucial, particularly when meeting higher-ups.
• Know the Field: Go beyond the job description and understand the company you're hoping to join. Your research demonstrates both commitment and enthusiasm.
• Engage with Questions: Showing up without questions can imply you're not fully invested. Ask insightful ones to reflect your knowledge and sincere interest.
• Communicate Clearly: Offer sharp, focused responses. Waffling may be perceived as unclear thinking or poor communication skills.
• Exit Strategically: If the conversation strays off-course, find a tactful way to steer back and close with confidence.
• Finish Strong: Have a powerful closing ready. Highlight your key strengths, articulate your value, and thank the interviewers for their time.

Remember, interviews are as much about delivering your message as they are about the content of the message itself. Stand tall, speak clearly, and let your preparation pave the pathway to success. Go get that job!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi folks, dennis Guzik, the old jarhead, and I'm back again to give you some more great career advice that well, I guarantee it's going to help you. So today, what do we want to talk about? Well, I read an article the other day about interviewing for a job and got me to thinking about some of the really bad interview mistakes that I saw while I was in the corporate world, and so I said, oh, I think that'll be a good topic and I'll go over those and hopefully they'll help you out. For those of you who are interviewing or will be, which is almost everybody, so let's get going on this thing here. So your resume passed Mustard and you got a call to come in for an interview Over.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Here are five totally avoidable mistakes that you need to avoid. First, dress appropriately, and by that I mean check what you're wearing. Nothing that's worn, stained, those sorts of things, especially your shoes. Make sure they're not dirty. I saw this all the time, not frequently, but enough that people would show up for an interview with frayed cuffs on their shirts, stains on their suit, jackets, those sorts of things. The positions I were interviewing for were ones that you had to put people in front of senior DoD officials. And if you can't dress for an interview, then I worry about whether or not you're going to dress at work appropriately and you can't look like a bum. So make sure that what you got there is in good shape and it's clean before you walk out the door for that interview.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Number two being unprepared, in the sense that they don't know what the company does or a lot of the details about the company that they're interviewing with, not just the job. So people come in there and they've got a really good handle on the job, the requirements, that sort of thing. But then I'd say, okay, well, what do you know about this company? Remember, you're not just interviewing for a job, you're interviewing to be hired by a company, so you need to know something about that company. Okay, do your homework, find out all you can, and for some of the privately held companies it's hard to get as much detail as a publicly held company. If there's something that you think you should know about that privately held company, or about any and just in general, that you can't find out, put that down on your list of questions that you will ask. When the interviewer says do you have any questions for me? That's got to be one of them. Why? Because you want to know one. And two, because it shows that you're interested in the company and not and you just don't let it pass that you don't have that information. So it's a good thing, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Three, that gets back to number two not being prepared to ask questions. When given the opportunity, I mean so often, I'd ask do you have any questions for me? And they'd say no. Basically, I think we've covered everything. How on earth could we have covered everything in that 30 minute interview? It shows me that either you don't care you didn't do the homework and find out what you don't know and then be prepared to ask, or they should. Just, you're just lazy, okay, you just don't want to go ahead and ask those sorts of things.

Speaker 1: 3:53

If you're doing a series of interviews and you get to say me, I'm the last person, it's common. I've heard a lot where someone says no, everybody's answered all my questions up until now. Well, that's not good. Okay, no-transcript. One ask me the same questions. You ask them why? Well, it might just help you to get a different perspective from an answer from a different person, especially one more senior. It could differ from the answer you got before and it could make a difference. Okay, so to help your list of questions, base it on what you don't know about the company but you want to know, or the job, and then be prepared to ask them all the way through.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Okay, number four talking too much and maybe I'm doing that now because this is going a little long, but anyhow, talking too much, okay For a 30-minute interview. I've had a time where I'll ask a question and somebody will take up 15 minutes of the interview answering it. You know, going in all different directions and that sort of thing. It leaves me short of the time to ask more questions that I need to know before I can make a hiring decision. And it also makes me wonder are you the sort of person that just kind of rambles on If I put you in front of a senior person briefing them? Are you just gonna go rambling on and on? I've seen this and it's not good. Okay, you gotta be able to get to the points succinctly and so I can get through my questions and you can provide me more information about yourself. Okay, and if you find yourself rambling on, stop. Okay, cause yourself to stop so that the interviewer can ask more questions. And here's a little tip here One sign that an interview is going well is when the interviewer spends more time talking than you.

Speaker 1: 5:44

That generally means that they have now become in the selling mode. They're telling you all great things about the job, about the company, they you have impressed them to the point where they are now trying to impress you. The interview is going well. Don't stop it by jumping in there and saying a bunch of stuff Okay.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Number five failure to send a thank you note. And it's not just good manners. I don't sit there and go oh, I didn't get a thank you note from Sally, so she's rude. Okay, you wanna do it for a couple of reasons. One is you do wanna thank the person. They took 30 minutes out of their busy day to talk to you, so you wanna thank them. Number two this is your opportunity to look back on that interview and say what about me? What great thing about me that I not get a chance to talk about? And then you wanna put that little ditty into that thank you note.

Speaker 1: 6:35

Okay, wendy, if send one out, I'd like to get one, not the next day, but maybe the day after, so that I've had a chance to think about the interview and then, all of a sudden, I get reminded by it again. So that's a good time. How do you do it? Well, it used to be sent a formal letter with a stamp and all that other crazy stuff. That's not necessary anymore. A nicely written email is great, okay, all right. Well, that's it All right. So I gave you five great tips to avoid making a really bad mistake during your interview. Dress appropriately, okay. Be prepared to talk about the company, not just the job. Be prepared to ask questions. Don't talk too much and send the thank you note. So that's all I got for you today. Thanks for listening, and if you're in that job hunt, take a look at my book. Find a job that fits your life, and I think you'll find it really, really helpful to you. It's on Amazon, so please read it. Thanks, bye.