HELLO ALL.Can anyone relate
Well folks--I promised my AWESOME boyfriend Rich that I would gett off of the monster board tonight--all of this interview stuff is driving me CRAZY!!! I went on an interview on Friday (18th) and it went very good.........then I come back to the board here and ALWAYS--ALWAYS find something that I have done wrong........I pick the interview apart, drive my guy CRAZY and before you know it--I am just a mess with how I have "screwed up the interview"---when, in fact, I have not.
I promised him I would get off this board-----He said to me that the ONLY way I could have screwed it up would have been by asking--
1. How much sick time do you offer?? I call in a lot.....
2. When can I start planning a vacation??
There's no reason to beat yourself up over the interview. It's done, it's over, there's no reason to be worked up, it won't change what has happened.
Many of the tips on here are guidelines, they don't guarantee to get (or not get a job) - in most cases.
Just remember that everything, even in the job market, happens for a reason. You may get turned down for one job, that just means a better one is waiting for you.
I've learned that you can never know for sure whether or not you got the job until... well... until they tell you. Applicants sometimes walk out of the interview confident they have the job in their pocket, only to find out some time later that they didn't get the job (and come to these boards to complain about the "evil" interviewers), and sometimes people keep beating themselves up over all the things they think they did wrong, and go on to receive an offer.
You can't know what the interviewer is thinking. The interviewing process is very subjective. A candidate can be rejected because he/she resembles the interviewer's ex, or because the interviewer hates the color green, or because the interviewer was just having a bad day and projected that onto the applicant. In a similar fashion, an applicant may do exceptionally well because the interviewer liked their personality, or subconsciously associated them with a person they liked (you know how sometimes you can meet someone and instantaneously like them because they remind you of someone else you like), or because the interviewer was having a great day and was once again projecting. You just never know until you know.
Also, before you go on to stress about something you read on these boards, I hope you keep in mind that not everyone who posts knows what they are talking about, or is who they claim to be. I constantly see things stated here with certainty that I know for a fact to be absolutely wrong. Everything said here, unless it's said by a poster whose suggestions you've found to be reliable over time, should be taken with a grain of salt.
There are other ways you can mess up. Telling the interviewer to F-off for instance. Or remember that episode of Friends where Chandler was interviewing then made a goofy joke on the way out the door then tried to take it back?
Most of the time however, it isn't about "messing up". It is about the hiring manager looking for the best fit. You can't know what the best fit is going to be, so all you can do is be yourself and not take it personally if it doesn't go to you. Someone else may have been more bubbly or more sedate or a little more experienced or a little more trainable or a little taller or shorter. Or, you might have been perfect but it went to the boss's no good son in law.
So, assuming you're not doing something totally goofy, you just have to keep doing what you're doing until you're the one that is the right fit.
And after many, many years of these boards, I can assure you that candidates are the worst judges of how they did in an interview, so stop beating yourself up over it. Just keep plugging.
Hang in there!
Tess
It seems some of the BEST interviews I have ever had ("aced it") have never gone anywhere and the ones I thought were horrible are the onces that I got called in for second and third interviews.
The same goes with people I have hired. They always tell me "I thought I did terrible in the interview" when they did very well.
Stop beating yourself up.