10 interview mistakes you might be making

Many people don’t feel confident walking into an interview. Let’s face it; it’s not something that we do every day and so it can feel like very unfamiliar territory.

Like any other important life skill, the ability to interview well is something that needs to be cultivated by learning and practising good techniques.

Unfortunately, so many people walk into interviews without taking the time to prepare, and this approach can be very costly as they end up making mistakes that could have otherwise been avoided.

So with that in mind, we have compiled a list of 10 common mistakes that many interviewees are not even aware that they are making.

Consider this your personal interview audit, are you making any of these mistakes right now?

You will also find lots of interview tips and access to resources that will help you to prepare for your next interview and land your dream job!

"This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated at (no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking on my links."

Let’s get started…

Too focused on what you want, not what you can do

So many candidates go into an interview with one question in mind, what can this company do for me? If this comes across to the interviewer it can be quite detrimental.

Remember, the interviewer also has an agenda; they want to know whether or not the person they are interviewing can help solve their problems. As candidates, our job is to demonstrate that we are up to the task, that we can make a difference to the organisation. 

Keep the interviewer’s agenda firmly in mind. Throughout the interview, aim to continuously reassure the interviewer that you can make a difference to the company. This might mean reserving questions such as “is there a clear career path?” and “what are the benefits like?” until later on in the process.

As part of your preparation, try to understand what challenges the organisation may be facing, or what market opportunities are open to them, and focus on convincing them that you can help overcome their challenges and exploit new opportunities. This will ensure they want to see you again!

Not doing your homework

Effective and thorough preparation is absolutely key to interview success. An unprepared candidate can be spotted a mile off and their lack of preparation will reveal a lack of interest in the role. Candidates that are unprepared always get caught out and sometimes even called out on their lack of interest. This can be very embarrassing.

To prepare well for an interview you should work on the following:

Research the organisation. Don’t just read their website, every candidate will do that, rather do some creative, out-of-the-box research. Read recent press releases and news articles about them or their competitors, watch videos on YouTube that might feature their CEO or top executives, explore the company LinkedIn page, chat to people who have worked for the organisation. Your aim should be to understand the challenges that the company is facing, then you can demonstrate in the interview how you can help them solve the problems that they are facing.

Research your interviewers. You should have been given their full names which will allow you to look them up on LinkedIn. Today, people’s social media accounts tell their story, they reveal a lot about an individual. LinkedIn is no different. Some deep-dive research will allow you to understand their priorities, passions, interests and will reveal any common ground that you have.

Research the role. Understanding the role is essential to being able to prepare powerful examples to the questions that they will ask you. A simple job description will tell you what key skills the role requires and what competencies they will be expecting you to demonstrate. With the help of LinkedIn, you may even be able to work out who the role reports into and who had the role before you – a look at their profiles can reveal a great deal of useful information.

Displaying low energy

Interviewers pick up on this immediately and it can be very difficult to recover from. A low-energy candidate sends the message, “I don’t really want this job”.

While energy levels can be relative, a low-energy candidate will typically have a weak handshake, bad posture, will fail to maintain good eye contact, not speak clearly, will be slow to respond and give weak unengaging answers.

While you should, of course, be yourself in your interviews, you also need to remember that this is a performance, you are on stage. This is your chance to convince your interviewers that you are the person for the role.

Body language plays a large role in how we come across in an interview. LinkedIn Learning has just released a new course that includes a whole section on ‘How to improve your body language in an interview’.

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The great news is, you can sign up for LinkedIn Learning FREE for one whole month; plenty of time to engage in some personal development and improve your interview skills. The free trial also gives you access to LinkedIn Premium’s great features, such as unlimited searches, which will give you a whole month to connect with and contact the people that can help you find the right role for you! Just click below. (affiliate link)

Using ‘we’ instead of using ‘I’

This is a very common mistake and one that most people make unconsciously. In most competency-based interviews, a candidate will be asked to provide examples that demonstrate how they performed in certain situations in the past. This gives the interviewer an indication of how that candidate will perform in the future.

The mistake that people make when communicating their examples is that they predominantly use ‘we’ and not ‘I’.

This is a mistake because they are interviewing you and not your team! They want to know what you did and how you performed, not what your boss did or how your team performed.

Let’s compare two interview answers about working to a tight deadline:

Team-based answer:

“We re-prioritized our tasks and all worked overtime to deliver the project on-time.”

Individual-based answer:

“I realized that we wouldn’t complete the project on-time unless we re-prioritized, so I sat with each team member to look at their workload and establish priorities. I also knew that I needed the whole team on-board and happy to work overtime to deliver this project. I communicated why this was important and the impact that delivering for this key client would have. I was really proud of everyone pulling together to make it happen.”

Next time you are asked to give an example, focus on using the pronoun ‘I’ and avoid saying ‘we’.

Think about what decisions you made and what steps you took as an individual and show the interviewer the impact that you will have on their organisation.

It’s great to be a team player, but a job interview is a time when you should take credit for the difference you made to your team.

Delivering unstructured answers

This really comes down to effective communication. Many candidates have a lot to say, they just don’t know how to say it in an effective manner.

When you are asked a question in an interview, it is imperative that you answer in a way that leaves the interviewer crystal clear about what you are trying to say.

In order to achieve this, it helps to follow a set pattern when answering questions, especially those that require detailed examples. I always encourage candidates to use the STAR technique which is particularly useful in competency-based interview situations.

Using STAR will enable you to structure your answers in the following way.

• Situation – what was the context?
• Task – what was I asked to do?
• Actions – what were the specific actions that I personally took?
• Results – what were the results of these actions?

Answers that are not thought through and not articulated in a structured manner are ineffective and often call into question your communication skills and whether you even know what you are doing.

Click here to read more about the STAR technique.

Forgetting about results

Many interviewees are great at explaining what they did in certain situations using the STAR technique but forget arguably the most important element – the results!

It doesn’t matter how you went about trying to improve your team’s performance, reduce a budget deficit or bring a new product to market if you fail to mention the results. The results of your efforts are how they will be judged to have been successful or not.

Always remember to be very specific regarding the results of your actions, this will require you to know your numbers and prepare some specific examples. It can be helpful to write out your examples using STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) before the interview so that the details will be easier to recall to mind when needed. 

Results are a powerful indication of the difference you can make to an organisation. Your results can often be the thing that will make an organisation want to invest in bringing you on board, so don’t forget to mention them.

Simply failing to answer the question

This one does not get spoken about much, however, it is more common than people realise. I have heard many candidates provide good answers but simply to the wrong question.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the moment and assume that we understand what the interviewer is asking us.

Whenever I coach anyone for interview success, I always stress the importance of actually listening to the question. It is essential that we answer the question that we are actually being asked and not a different question.

Before you dive into an answer take a second to ask yourself, “what have I just been asked?” If you are unsure always ask the interviewer to repeat or to clarify the question.

If you are in a video interview, then it can be helpful to make note of some keywords as you are being asked a question. This will help you to stay on track as you begin your answer.

So, the next time you are talking, ask yourself this; “am I answering the question that I have been asked, or, am I just speaking about what I’m interested in?”.

Going in unrehearsed

You can’t know every question that you are going to be asked in an interview. However, it is possible to rehearse elements of your interviews beforehand and practice to the point where you are confident and proficient.

Most people walk into interviews blind. Very few people are lucky enough to be naturally confident and proficient in interview situations. Interviews tend to feel very unnatural and most of us need to practice in order to perform well.

How can you do this?

• Know and practice your answers

Although you cannot know all the questions that you are going to be asked, you should know the types of competencies that you will need to demonstrate. If it’s a sales role they will want examples of when you have increased sales, launched a new product or opened up a new territory. Use the STAR technique to pre-plan your answers and then practice them out loud.

Certain questions such as “tell us about yourself” and “why do you want this role” are also very common and can be prepared beforehand.

• Practice with a friend or a professional

Someone who can set up a mock interview scenario, ask you questions and provide you with detailed, constructive feedback. The more practice you have, the better. You will grow in confidence and this can make all the difference to your performance. The benefit of organising some sessions with an expert is that they know exactly what to look for and can also help you identify your blind spots and weak areas.

As you practise and rehearse answers, it can be helpful to focus on key messages you want to convey, instead of writing out and practising a set script. The aim is to know exactly what you want to communicate and then communicate it naturally. You do not want to sound like you are reading out a pre-practised response.

Do you have an upcoming interview? We can help you prepare and practise!

Click here to find out more.

Failing to ask (good) questions

More often than not, at the close of an interview, a candidate will be asked if they have any questions. This is a fantastic opportunity, one that is sadly missed by so many people who either choose to ask no questions or who ask the wrong questions.

A candidate who asks no questions comes across as uninterested, disengaged and unconfident.

An interviewer will often give the opportunity for questions simply to gauge a candidate’s interest and the depth of research that they have completed.

Conversely, a candidate who asks the wrong questions can unwittingly reveal they are more interested in what the organisation can do for them and not how they can make a difference to the organisation. 

Some examples of bad questions

• What training do you offer?
• How many vacation days do you give?
• Do you give annual pay rises?

All of these questions are about me, my priorities. A great candidate will want to know how they can help solve the company’s problems and make a positive impact.

Some examples of great questions:

• What are your biggest challenges right now?
• What does success look like 12 months from now?
• In my research, I noticed that…is this a priority for you?

Great questions demonstrate that you are imagining yourself in the role, that you are interested in their agenda and that you have done your research. 

Failing to end on a positive note

The conclusion of an interview is your chance to redeem a poor performance or solidify a strong one. It’s also an opportunity that many candidates miss and give too little thought to.

People remember how you end the interview more than how you began; this is where you leave a lasting impression.

Many candidates neglect to end the interview on a positive note, they forget to thank the interviewers and they do not set themselves up for the next stage in the process.

End on a positive note by:

• Thanking the interviewers for their time, tell them that you enjoyed meeting them.
• Ask about the next steps, if they give you a commitment for follow-up, they are much more likely to follow-through. Ask “When can I expect to hear from you?” Or “What are the next stages in the process?”
• Another great question to ask is, “Is there anything that you would like to ask me that has not come up in today’s interview?” this is a great opportunity for an interviewer to clarify something that may be concerning them, and your opportunity to make sure that you do not leave any loose ends or grey areas.
• If you feel that the interview has gone well, a great question to ask is, “How do you feel the interview went today?” If you put the interviewer in a position where they need to positively reenforce your performance, they are much more likely to follow-up with you and take you to the next stage.

How can you succeed in interviews?

An interview should not be left to chance, it’s all too easy to make small but serious errors that ruin our chances of being offered a great career opportunity. 

Candidates who invest in themselves and work on their interview performance are many times more likely to succeed.

Interviewing is an essential life skill that should not be neglected.

If you have been fortunate enough to be selected for an interview, you will not want to leave the outcome to chance.

Effective interview preparation can be the difference between being forgotten the minute you walk out the door and being offered your dream job!

Over the years, we have coached people at all levels of their career to perform confidently in job interviews. 

Our interview coaching sessions are built around you as an individual and your unique needs. Together we’ll identify areas for improvement and work at your pace until you feel confident and prepared.

We’ll unpack and practise some of the most common, and dreaded, interview questions, such as;

• Tell me about yourself?
• What is your biggest weakness?
• What are your salary expectations?
• What questions do you have for us?
• As well as competency-based questions such as; ‘Tell me about a time when…’

Click here to find out more...

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