Job Interview Failures, the biggest culprit will surprise you

Don’t be this candidate

The most common interview failures

There are an infinite number of ways interview failures can occur. Video may have killed the radio star, but the cell phone killed the interview star. You went to HairMasters, re-vamped your resume, and wore a great suit. These are all well-intentioned moves, and all need to happen. What candidates often don’t realize is that interview failures can occur in several ways, and if they had simply listened to their mothers growing up, they would likely receive more job offers. The following will not only kill your interview before it starts, but you won’t even know you died a slow, painful death behind the closed doors of HR:   

Career Limiting Moves

• Enter the company lobby at the last minute with a cup of coffee in hand
• Arrive in the company lobby while taking a phone call
• Arrive chewing gum
• Arrive with sunglasses on your head
• Arrive inappropriately dressed, or / too much perfume or cologne

All of the above smacks of a bad first impression and will result in interview failures. Coming in for an interview is the equivalent of meeting the parents of your significant other. Remember, you are not just meeting the parents; you are meeting them in their house. You wouldn’t arrive late to meet your significant other’s parents with a cup of coffee, chewing gum, or sunglasses on your head.  I don’t think a movie star with half a brain would attempt the above. Leave the sunglasses at home unless you are a movie star with less than half a brain. 

I don’t see cell phones in interviews

That being said, the number one item that causes interview failures regularly is the cell phone. Several hiring managers and individual contributors conduct interviews, questioning this logic and thinking, “HRNasty, you are being dramatic; I rarely see someone come into an interview with a cell phone.” I will tell you why “Oh ye of little faith.” 

I am the doorman.  The guy in HR/recruiting is interviewing your candidates before you and culling the weak. I have a tough time sending a candidate into an interview if I think a cell phone will cause a distraction. I will discreetly decline them before they reach round 2 and walk them out the back door. 

Phone failures

• I meet a candidate in the lobby typing away on their phone. I have to wait for them to finish before they stand up to greet me. The interview hasn’t started, so I can only assume this is the first of many failures.
• I am interviewing a candidate, and the cell phone is placed on the table in plain sight as if they are waiting for an important call. FAIL. (If it goes off, it will be a distraction.) 
• The phone call goes off during the interview. This one is touchy. Depending on the candidate and how they handle turning off the phone, I can go either way. If they spend five long “dog seconds” trying to turn off the phone and another five long “dog seconds” making excuses (every second is the equivalent of 7 in my busy day), then the interview is over.  If they apologize and handle business quickly, they still have a shot, but they are working out of a deep hole. Both are paths to interview failures.
• The text goes off during the interview. You may not respond to the text, but the fact that the phone was left on AND they picked it up to check out the message will end the interview. 

The doorperson did their job

Many are questioning how often this happens. If you interview someone AFTER HR screens the candidates, you rarely see these evolutionary throwbacks. It isn’t Behavioral Interviewing; this is Darwinian Interviewing. Only the adaptable survive. If your parents passed on the “common courtesy” gene, you will probably survive the cruel world of interviewing. If you were too thick-headed to get your parents’ message, a more adaptable candidate moves their skill set forward in the evolution of interviews.  One mistake is all it takes to wipe out a species or unleash the beast of interview failures.             

Candidates may not be as shallow or worried about their image as I am, but they should be. I am the face of the company, and I constantly think about the company’s image and who will represent it. If they are thinking about their image, it should be their professional image, not their after-5, let down your hair—nightclub image. I don’t think of Facebook, but I am thinking of LinkedIn. 

Example given

Picture this: I bring a candidate into the interview room with the hiring manager. I make some nice introductions. I give some quick accomplishments of both the hiring manager and the candidate to each other. This way they have a starting point for conversation. Because I played the courteous host, I left them to their chit-chat and offered coffee and tea.  Forty-five minutes later, the hiring manager comes out of the interview room, hands me the resume, and with a roll of their eyes says, “Cell phone went off during the interview.”

They don’t stop or break stride to give me any more feedback; they keep walking and leave me with a now worthless resume.  My spirit is broken, and my head is hung low.  Realistically, how much more feedback does anyone need than that?  As much as I am muttering “bitch” under my breath, I can’t blame the hiring manager. I should have vetted this one out.  This isn’t just a rookie mistake on the candidate’s part but MY rookie mistake.  The candidate made me look bad. I don’t have a leg to stand on. There is just no getting around this one. The next time I have a candidate for this hiring manager, you can be sure I will not take any chances.  Suddenly, I, HRNasty, am working from behind the eight ball. Yes, my reputation is on the line. 

Leave it behind

In today’s world, we often take cell phones for granted. They are as much a part of us as our wallet, keys, and favorite hair products. Like the Amex card, we don’t leave home without it. Most of us carry our phones everywhere we go, including the bathroom.  Even when we go out to a nightclub and try to have as little as possible, we still carry our cell phones. The interview room is not a nightclub. The interview room is akin to a symphony or a Broadway play. You can bring a cell phone to church, a first-date dinner, and even a wedding reception. Do not bring a cell phone to an interview.         

Interviews are not a place to see and be seen.  Interviews are an opportunity to make a professional impression.  A Starbucks, sunglasses, and a cell phone are the daytime versions of your personal life. With the drink in hand, you are trying to hide a hangover with your glasses while trying to figure out your next hook-up. This is a bad look (and all too common) at a university career fair. Interview failures occur regularly, every 15 minutes, during on-campus recruiting events.

If you’re heading into an interview, take my advice: leave the cell phone, sunglasses, and coffee in the car. 

See you at the after party,

HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone who is good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

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