Authenticity in Interviews: Safe or Sorry?

//Disclaimer: All opinions are my own//

This post is inspired by some feedback I heard from a hiring manager about a candidate: During their discussion, this very smart person couldn’t name the biggest mistake they’d made as an engineer. As a recruiter, I always want to advocate for my candidates, and I can see why a job seeker may not want to talk about something that shows them in a negative light. Interviews often put us in a situation where we have to navigate the expectations of interviewers, cultural conventions and our own insecurities. Anxiety often makes people give answers they THINK are expected from them, trying to present themselves in the best way possible. I'd like to show how authenticity in an interview can be beneficial and help you position yourself as a mature and self-aware candidate.

The dramatic irony of giving "safe" answers in interviews is, that candidates often DON’T KNOW what answers are expected, or what answers are “correct”. ?An example from my early experience: I was interviewed for a student job at the Biology department of my university, and was asked whether I knew anyone who studied there. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t, coming from the Humanities. Turned out, that was the best answer I could give: it meant, I would never leak any sensitive information from the documents I was to work with. For a second, I thought I'd failed the interview only because of my false assumptions.

Similarly, in the situation I described at the beginning, the hiring manager was hoping for the candidate to share a major incident or an outage they caused, because these situations stay burned in your memory as a young professional. You become more self-aware, and you learn strategies to avoid similar mistakes in the future – either by communicating more, or by being more thorough with checks and quality control. If you never had a moment when you thought “oh no, this is BIG, will I get fired for this?”, you are either very lucky or not very self-aware.

So how can you go about it? How to be authentic without shooting yourself in the foot?

First, remember that a rejection is not always your fault. Even if you match your answers to some perfect golden standard, the company may end up hiring someone else – maybe they used to work here before or had more experience in the specific field, or they are a good friend of the CEO (the world is not always a fair place). Sadly, we cannot be fully in control of how interviews go and how we are perceived by others. Being confident and honest generally makes a better impression, though, if the company and the team value integrity. And let’s agree, if the company prefers to hear beautiful lies that are not confirmed by results, it may be not the place you want to work for.

Now, a few tricky moments we can discuss in detail:

Questions about motivation

"Why do you want to join our company? Why are you looking for a change?" Don’t get me wrong, I know we often look for a job because we want to relocate, we want more money, a better title, or we were laid off. None of this has anything to do with the company you’re applying for, or the team, or the role. But you can look at it differently: you probably have spent a few years perfecting your skills in a particular field – why not to start by talking why you’re passionate about this, and how you hope to develop this on your new job? If you were laid off, why are you applying for a similar type of role, even if getting hired takes longer than getting hired as a server or a waiter? At the very least, it means you value your experience and time you’ve invested in growing your career, and you’re not planning to give it up. It’s about you, yes, but about you as a part of this specific company. Now just look at the company and consider what makes it more attractive to you than others? If you had a line-up of offers from startups and big corps, companies with legacy tech or cutting-edge products, companies with high-performance pressure or places known for work-life balance – where would you go? Would it be a company you are interviewing with? Why? Maybe you’re a young graduate, and you want to work in a high-pressure, demanding environment to challenge yourself and grow fast. Or you may be a parent who has things in life outside of work. Maybe you want to have time for side projects; or you want to learn how to run a startup, open new markets or present financial results to investors. One meaningful sentence is usually enough for the first interview, and you can investigate the topic later when you have more information.

Questions about conflicts at work

Oooh, these feel tricky! Because it is hardly possible to go through a career without a conflict. Again, if you think you never had a conflict in your professional life, you may either be very lucky, or may have missed something. The good thing about having conflicts is they usually demonstrate that two people are passionate about a specific topic but have different perspectives on it. It’s all about how you navigate this difference – and maybe, you need someone’s help to do it. Maybe your manager had to step in and mediate the discussion; maybe you were mature enough to ask for feedback, or the other person initiated the conversation. In any of these situations, you’ve experienced the way a conflict can be resolved, and have learned something from it. Just remember that professional discussions should be free from emotions and egos.

Surprising Feedback You Received

You know what this is about. It's not about something that made your heart jump with joy. Surprising feedback is rarely positive, and it often comes as a chisel meant to reshape our behaviour. Often, you get it when you're either not aware of how you affect others, or because you make assumptions about social norms that prove wrong in a company. It can be about being late, discussing personal matters at work, taking too many smoking breaks, or your sense of humour being too dry for the senior management (this was the surprising feedback I got once). As long as you accept feedback and change your behaviour, or look for ways to reduce negative impact on others, it's not a question to be afraid of. Sometimes, surprising feedback can even be funny!

Finally - Your Biggest Mistake

This is where we started, so just a quick note here: When you talk about the mistake, have your story prepared: What was the situation? Why did you do the thing? How did you find out about the bad consequences? What did you do to fix it? Did you look for help? Did you admit your mistake to your manager? All these details can help you demonstrate a level of professionalism and maturity that is sought after in any team. So don't be afraid to take a risk and open up about something that wasn't your proudest moment - as long as it made you a better person.

Did you have situations when you felt you needed to "edit yourself"? Or situations where you took risks and they paid off? Tell me in the comments!