Even if you’re a raving extrovert who loves meeting new people and does well under pressure, you probably don’t love job interviews. They’re such a tricky dance: simultaneously, job interviews ask you to impress a stranger, answer complex questions, and try to figure out from a short conversation whether or not you want to work there. This week’s roundup focuses on career advice that helps you avoid the pitfalls of job interviewing. 
(Photo Credit: Alan Cleaver/Flickr)
Lily Zhang at The Muse: 3 Steps for Dealing With a Truly Terrible Interviewer
“Most hiring managers do not conduct interviews for a living — which means, unsurprisingly, that many of them are terrible at it,” writes MIT career development specialist Zhang. “Whether you get a taciturn interviewer who only asks two questions or the inexperienced manager who spends way too much time focusing on your college years, knowing how to handle the rogue person on the other side of the table is a nice skill to have.”
How do you keep a bad interviewer from costing you the job? Zhang lays out a three-step plan.
Alison Green at Ask a Manager: I Was Interviewed by the Person I’d Be Replacing – Should I Worry?
A reader asks:
I have had several interviews where the interviewer themselves told me that they have submitted their resignation, and that they are interviewing me as their replacement. It happened to me more than once that the interviewer even said it was their last day at the company. Isn’t that awkward to share during an interview? Sometimes the person who is leaving interviews me alone, other times with a panel.
First, I don’t think they would hire carefully, because why should they care since they are leaving? Second, it makes me want to ask why they are leaving and it definitely gives me a red flag. Interviews are partly about selling the company to the applicant to want to work for them, so it certainly makes me think twice about working there. I will appreciate some insight into this.
Management and career expert Green‘s response allays some fears, but reminds us of why panel interviews, or even multiple single-person ones, are actually in our best interests – even if they’re somewhat harrowing to go through.
Val Matta at CareerShift: Here’s How to Ensure Your Job Search Will Fail
“You’ve been sending out dozens of applications for weeks, but still have heard nothing,” writes Matta, CareerShift’s vice president of business development, at the job searching tool provider’s blog. “Unfortunately, that’s pretty common. In fact, 75 percent of job seekers who applied to jobs didn’t hear back from employers, according to data from CareerBuilder’s 2013 survey. Even so, you’ve been showing your resume to everyone in sight and bemoaning the agony of a job search to your friends. You may think someone should have offered you a job by now. But while your motivation is clearly there, your approach might be spoiling your job search.”
Here‘s what you might be doing wrong, and how to make it right. (Hint: don’t stalk the hiring manager.)
Tell Us What You Think
What’s the best career advice you’ve read this week? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.
Leave a Reply