The Good News About Interviews – Tip 10 of 10
Going to an interview can seem a daunting prospect, so here is this week’s tip that you can take to improve the probability of your career success.
Tip 10 of 10: Follow Up – Managing the Process – If Rejected
If you would like the job but it is apparent in the meeting that you are not going to get it, ask the interviewer for feedback. This is an opportunity to learn in the real world from what you actually did and how it struck them. Most people love to be asked their opinion, listen carefully and take notes. Don’t be defensive about the feedback, you may not agree with what the interviewer is saying, but this is their genuine perception: perhaps you do lack the relevant experience or perhaps you didn’t put it across clearly and convincingly.
The interviewer may not be good at giving feedback, so don’t interpret apparent criticisms too personally: accept that this is the behaviour that was seen. For example: ‘your answers were too long’ is a comment on your behaviour and you can change your behaviour, but ‘you are too full of yourself’ is an inference that it is unreasonable to draw in such limited circumstances.
As well as feedback, ask for concrete advice, such as what intermediate steps to take to accumulate the required experience, whether there are any training courses that would be recommended, what publications to take to keep up-to-date with the sector, what associations and networking groups to join and, of course, who to talk to.
If having completed the interview and a few days later you then either don’t get invited to the next round or don’t get the offer, ask for feedback both on where the gaps were and how you performed in the interview. Some organisations have a policy against providing this feedback and some managers are unwilling to get into a discussion, but others will be happy to provide some very useful pointers
So performing well in the interview might not be as daunting as you first thought and may not require anything more than a fresh perspective and way of looking at it. It sounds simple and it is, it’s just not always easy, especially when trying to do it alone.