Top Interview Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

I've done a lot of hiring in my life and my work at ExeQserve exposes me and my recruitment team to other interviewers. Our experiences taught us some good lessons about what makes a good or a bad interview. Let me share them with you here. If you have experiences that you like to share to our readers, please feel free to share them in the comments section.

Here now is my list:

1. Being inconsistent with what's written in your CV. Some candidates put so much embelishments (read lie) in their CVs in order to get noticed. While it might get you that job interview appointment, showing signs that you lied will be your "lie-abilty." get it? 
2. Appearing unprepared and somewhat lethargic. Some people think that all they have to do is show up.  This may sound silly but I cannot count the number of times that I felt this about a candidate. The problem is that some of these people are great or have the potential to be great at what they do, they just happen to suck  in social interaction. A job interview is a social interaction that require some social interaction skills, know what I'm saying? In your next job interview, suit up, psyche up and prepare to build rapport with your interviewer.  It's not rocket science. Read up on Neuro Linguistic Programming, specifically rapport building. It works, I tell you.

Managing Your Interviewer's Impression

I must admit that in my years of experience in the HR practice, I noticed that recruitment professionals have certain preference in applicants that often affect their hiring decisions. It isn't really just the recruitment people, even the hiring decision makers or the ones who do the final interview have certain stereotypical mindset about ideal candidates. Because of this they sometimes lose out on good candidates that do not fit their picture of that ideal candidate. Their loss, right? If it is a desirable job, it is your loss too!

Here are some suggestions that may or may not get you the job that you want but will unlikely ruin your chances. Ready?

• Don't be late. need I say more? I know, sometimes it feels like the traffic and the rest of the universe is conspiring to make you late so make sure that you don't give them a chance to succeed. Wake up early and go to your interview early. If you come in too early, you can always kill time somewhere near and then come up to the client's office when it's near the time. If you are five to 10 minutes early, that will be very good.