Don’t make my mistakes when interviewing for that dream job.

A little advice regarding interviewing for those of you who might find it beneficial. 

1.    Don't hide your enthusiasm for the job/company during an interview.

2.   Know your audience 

3.   Don’t let the little things throw you off your game.

4.   When you’re given the opportunity to ask questions try asking what you could say (or do) to show how much you want the position.

If you’re reading this you are probably in HR or have an interest in HR. You are likely part of what I call my tribe and most people in my tribe are HR people. If that’s the case you might even consider yourself to be pretty good at interviewing. However, remember interviewing on one side of the table is NOT the same as interviewing on the other side. I wish I had remembered that very fact.

As some of you know my family just moved to Las Vegas, and while my husband’s job is stable and he works from home, I find myself once again in the job market. Not a comfortable place to be for anyone, but a place I have been before so I know I’ll be ok.

With that in mind, I recently interviewed with a company here in Las Vegas for a position that I really wanted. It was a position I knew I would be good at, while at the same time I felt would be challenging and provide a considerable amount of learning opportunities. The company has a great reputation and everyone I interacted with seemed strong, confident, professional, and very nice. 

Because of today’s world being what it is my first two interviews (not counting the pre-interviews with the recruiting team) were virtual, one with the VP of HR and the other with the Director of HR. They were not my first virtual interviews but I am still getting comfortable with not being in person and yet trying to relay a professional and relaxed air of confidence. However, I felt they went well and the feedback I received from the recruiters was positive, they even assured me I “crushed it” on both of them. With that feedback, and the research I had done on the company, I allowed myself to get my hopes up but not too much. That was the first challenge that occurred. You see I have had interviews before where I thought I had done well and the job was great so I got very excited as the process progressed only to be disappointed when I was not selected for whatever reason. So this time while I was excited on the inside I did not allow myself to get too hopeful and I did not allow myself to show that I was too excited about the possibility of getting this dream job. 

The next level of the interview process was a peer interview with the HR team. I would be presenting a PowerPoint based on three scenarios (which I later discovered were real). While this was a first for me during the interview process, I have always loved public speaking and consider myself a fairly good presenter. So I got to work creating a PowerPoint and went to the peer interview with confidence. The presentation itself I think went ok. I went overtime a bit but I have a tendency to be a talker so that is an ongoing issue for me (as you can probably tell if you’ve been reading this long). After the presentation, the team was given a chance to ask questions. 

Let’s pause here for just a sec. When I’m the interviewer I prefer the interview to be more conversational as opposed to rigidly structured. So I default to that style when I am being interviewed. Because of that as the questions came I answered them as honestly as I could while keeping the atmosphere relaxed. That is where the next challenge came. One of the questions was something about why I wanted this position and I told the full truth. I wanted the position (BTW; this was for an HRBP role which is a career goal of mine) in part because there is a lot of diversity in the role. Diversity in duties, diversity in responsibilities, diversity of managers, diversity of other positions throughout the company for which I will be supporting. Well, that’s what I should have said and left it at that, but I didn’t. 

I was trying to be conversational so I thought I would tell them what I was looking for in this job by giving them an example of what I had envisioned in the past as the perfect job. I figured we were in Vegas so the example I chose was a casino. HUGE mistake! I did not realize until after that if you’re in Vegas and you are not talking to a casino you should not use a casino as an example. The people you are talking to might think you want to be at a casino rather than working with them (if they are not a casino). This never even occurred to me, I thought “of course they will know this is only an example”. I have found in the past that you NEVER use the company you are talking to as an example unless you are 100% sure you know exactly what you are talking about in that particular scenario and how that company handles it. Since I did not know the company’s exact position in this area I did not want to use them as an example. I figured everyone is familiar with the basics of how a casino works and so it would be like talking about Kleenex when talking about tissues. 

In spite of that hiccup (that I didn’t realize had happened yet) once again I got glowing feedback from everyone and so I allowed myself to get just a little more excited. 

I didn’t hear back until the following Monday when I was asked to come in and meet with the Director of HR (the person from the 2nd virtual interview who was also there for the peer interview) to discuss a few things. This is actually when I found out about the casino mistake. I went in and the discussion was going well, but I still did not want to get my hopes up too high. This is where the next challenge came. 

You see from the very beginning this was described as a 99% remote (work from home) position. Now I have never had a remote job. However, when the apocalypse first hit in March of 2020 we were moved to work-from-home status and I loved it for the time I was able to work remotely. So the idea of having a remote position was just a big bonus. It was not, I repeat, it was NOT a deal-breaker. But when this came up during the last meeting and it was clarified/corrected/changed that it was not a remote position and at most the HRBP would work from home two days a week. For the remainder of the week they would be in the office. Once the apocalypse was over they would move to working from the office 100% of the time. Now again this was not that big of a deal, but this 180° turn-a-round in the job description threw me for a bit of a loop. I thought the rest of the meeting went ok and they even walked me around the whole office and introduced me to other department heads and showed me the workspace. The meeting ended with the normal pleasantries and their assurance that I would hear back from them in the next 24 hours with a final decision. 

Now we come to my last challenge. I neglected to ask sincerely “what can I do or say to show how much this position means to me and how much I truly want it” before leaving the meeting. If I had asked that simple question I may have been given the opportunity to clear up any questions they still had or anything that I may not have expressed adequately. Like the fact that a remote position was NOT what I required and would not be a factor on my part. On the contrary, the nature of this position lends itself better to working on site. Not to mention working away from home might just be good for my marriage. But I didn’t ask and just left. 

As you can probably guess from the simple fact that you have been reading this long, I did find out the next day via the recruiter that I did not get the position. The feedback was that they were unsure how much I really wanted the position and they felt that since it was not a remote job I would not be happy. 

The moral to the story;

1.    Don’t be afraid to show the interviewer how much you truly want the job. If you’re excited about the job they will be excited about you. 

2.   Yes, always be yourself. It’s the real you they are interviewing not a cardboard cutout of a version of you that you think they want. BUT having said that, gear your responses to the audience you have in front of you, not the ones you’ve had in the past (i.e. change up your examples).

3.   If you are thrown off by something said or done during the interview consciously give yourself a breather. Try not to let it affect the rest of the interview. Remember it’s unlikely they will present you with an offer on the spot. So if it truly is a deal-breaker you can review that later. But if you let it throw you at the time it could derail a good opportunity. 

4.   If you’re given the chance; ask directly what you could do or say to improve your chances or show how much you would like to work with them. You might not get a response. But you never know, it may just show your true enthusiasm. If you’re very lucky their answer might just give you the key to landing your dream job. 

Good luck on your future interviews, and remember don’t make my mistakes. I've already made them so you don’t have to.