How to Overcome the Top 5 Interview Mistakes

admin

5 years ago

Yesterday, I was at the nail salon and overheard two young women talk about the politics in their department at work (which happened to be at Facebook, btw…good to know they too experience some drama). One lady expressed that she couldn’t understand why another colleague had been promoted to a management position (and she, herself, had not). The way she described the situation made me wonder how she performed in her interviews. I suspected she made one of these Top 5 Interview Mistakes…

How to Overcome the Top 5 Interview Mistakes

Before jumping in, you probably noticed that there are a lot of resources on how to best answer interview questions (you can check out some from this site here). Often times, you’ll see suggestions like following the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format for a response (see here).

Those are all great tips and I use them myself when I interview for new roles.

In this post, we will address common interview mistakes that occur when people implement that advice poorly or fail to follow it.

These are the most common interview mistakes I’ve seen in my career as a manager…

Mistake #1: Overconfidence

Yes, it is important to convey a sense of confidence in yourself and your ability to do the job you are interviewing for. As a hiring manager, I get a bit cautious about hiring a candidate if they are too confident (especially if this is a promotion).

Unless you are already doing the job, you should expect there would be some areas that are new and you need to grow into. Otherwise, why would you want this job? So, just be honest about those areas and what your plan is to overcome them.

For example, a very common gap candidates have when interviewing for a management position is having actual management experience. Sometimes, the candidate may have managed an intern or a contracted employee. Those are great experiences, but you haven’t been a manager before and, as such, you will be learning the fundamentals if I were to promote you to that role.

If you do not acknowledge the need to learn, you will likely not obtain the role. You are conveying to the hiring manager that you aren’t self-aware enough to know your gaps and that he or she will have to spend all their time trying to get you to see them.

So, what should you do?

In summary, you should be confident in the skills you have to date, honest where you need to grow, and clear and confident in what you will do to close your gaps over time.

This is one of the interview mistakes that I suspect the lady at the nail salon struggled with. She felt she had checked all the boxes and done the right things, which her competitor for the role had not. If she had that attitude in the interview, the hiring manager was likely concerned that she wouldn’t realize that she had a lot to learn.

Mistake #2: Don’t answer the interviewer’s questions

Sometimes, with interview questions, it can be difficult to know exactly what the interviewer is looking for. Other times, they can be downright baffling. They are pulled from a canned source and the interviewer has to read them verbatim in order to ensure consistency and fairness.

Once I was interviewing a front-line manager for a manager-of-manager role. I asked her this question:

“Please describe a time you created a plan for implementing your organization’s strategy.”

She went on and on and on for 10 minutes about….developing a strategy for her organization. However, the question was really asking for how she developed a plan to implement a strategy.

I tried to redirect her a few times, but she just kept talking. Then, we ran out of time. So, she didn’t answer the question and I could not really comment on her ability to develop and execute plans.

Needless to say, this was one of the worst interview mistakes I’ve seen and, as such, she did not get the promotion.

How can you be sure to answer the question?!

Before you answer any question, pause and ask a question back such as, “I think you’re asking about a time in which I created an organizational strategy.” In the case above, I would have said, “No, I’m not. I’m asking about when you developed a plan to a strategy…”

Alternatively, you can “preview” your response with the interviewer. Before jumping in on a detailed answer, you could say something like, “I was going to talk about the time I developed a strategy to address declining sales. Is that what you are looking for?” Again, in the example above, I would have said I was looking for the implementation not the strategy.

In summary, it pays to pause and check you understood the question or your example in order to avoid one of the worst interview mistakes!

Mistake #3: Too much detail

As part of your interview responses, you need to provide some basic information about a situation or project so that the interviewer can understand the context of your situation and response. This can be problematic if someone shares too much detailed information. The interviewer may not fully understand what you are talking about, especially if you are referencing technical details.

I once interviewed someone named Sarah for a marketing role on my team. She had been in customer market research prior. I asked her a question about how she overcame a roadblock in a project.

She went on to talk about how the analytic software she was using for a project didn’t work. She discussed very technical aspects of this software and the analysis. Honestly, I got lost. Then I got bored. And, then, I pretty much tuned her out.

How can you be sure not to go into too much detail?

Great question! My response to that is: ASK.

So, for example, Sarah could have responded, “I encountered a roadblock on a project deadline when software I was using didn’t work as anticipated. Would you like me to explain the issue in more detail before proceeding with how I addressed it?”

NO, absolutely not. I didn’t have enough coffee this morning to withstand that :).

Anyway, see how asking before diving into details would help avoid makes this costly interview mistake? You can calibrate the right level of detail by checking in and asking.

I call this the “Goldilocks” level of detail…not too little, not too much…just right!

Mistake #4: You’re boring

Often times in interviews, people are so focused on making a “good” impression that they aren’t themselves. Not only is the hiring manager assessing your skills and competencies, he/she is also gauging how you will fit with the rest of the team and key stakeholders you have at the company.

While that may not seem important, your ability to “jive” with others will directly impact your ability to work well with them and, if relevant, influence them. It may not seem like this is one of the worst interview mistakes, but let me explain…

I made a bad hiring decision once when I chose someone who was very technically capable but oh-so-boring. She was very ambitious; all she did was work, read business books, and go to networking and industry events.

Every week at my team meeting, I would kick things off by asking how everyone’s weekend was. Everyone would get when she talked about her weekends filled with work and reading the Wall Street Journal, etc. Everyone avoided her, no one ever offered to help her…it ruined my team dynamic. I won’t do that again. I won’t choose anyone who won’t jive with my team.

How can you be sure you’re not boring?

Be yourself!

Don’t be afraid to show who you are by talking about your personal life, interests, or introduce some humor into the situation. Obviously, let’s keep it G-rated and work appropriate.

Mistake #5: Bad mouthing others

In the course of an interview, you will likely be asked about a time when you experienced conflict and how you addressed it. Or, you may be talking about a project that took a bad turn and how you overcame it.

Under no circumstance should you ever bad-mouth others in these responses. Someone may have committed egregious offenses but you should refrain from talking badly about them.

For example, I once interviewed a candidate who clearly did not think he had a great manager at the time. I asked him why he wasn’t seeking advancement in his own department. He responded by saying he would have. but his leadership, “didn’t value developing their own people so he is looking at other departments.”

While there may have been an element of truth to that, it came across as judgmental about his leadership. I wondered if he had every shared concern with them productively for them, or asked directly for what he wanted.

Honestly, I wondered if he would blame me one day for something, and I decided not to put him through to the next round of interviews.

How can you talk about conflict without blaming?

It’s actually easy: just talk about the situation, not the people. In the situation above, the candidate could have said something like, “I’m not planning to stay in my current department because there aren’t many opportunities for advancement.”

Was it true? Yes.

Could it have been because the leadership didn’t prioritize creating them? Yes, likely.

But you don’t need to say that…and you risk sounding like you’re blaming someone.

Keep the people out of it, and you should be fine!

So, those are my Top 5 Interview Mistakes! Imagine how fast you can get a promotion if you avoid them in the future!! I hope you found them helpful, please let me know in the comments below!

If you liked this post on Interview Mistakes, you may also be interested in these: