May 28, 2014 in Blog by Dawn Williams

How to survive a terrible job interview.

Maybe you had a terrible job interview and it could have been caused by you or by the interview, here are some tactics to turn it around.

There are a couple of things that can make an interview terrible. The first thing is, maybe it’s terrible for you, and you’re just not having a good day. Second, maybe the interviewer is terrible. Or number 3, maybe the interviewer has taken way to much time to talk about themselves and their company and not given you any chance to showcase your talents. Here are a couple of strategies you can use in those different situations.

1. You have either woken up on the wrong side of the bed, you’ve gotten some terrible news, you got stuck in a traffic jam  your head’s just not in it. You can either fake it till make it, ask to reschedule or you can really dig deep and find that hour to be on your best behavior; maybe it’s not your best day, but you give it your best shot. It depends on what is making that day so bad for you. It does happen and you can use different strategies to overcome it.
2. You have an interviewer that’s just not good at interviewingI’ve heard that a lot. The interview is asking non-relevant questions or isn’t concentrated. Here is your chance to take over the interview, but you have to very subtle about how you take it over. You don’t want to strong-arm your interviewer. Bring them back lightly, showcase your talents, tie in what they’re talking about with what you have accomplished. It’s a subtle dance that you’re doing but you have to bring them back where they are focusing on you. Change your tone of voice; change the speed of your voice; find something to bring them back to the present moment.
3. I’ve heard of many candidates who’ve gone to an interview, and they really weren’t asked that many questions, the interviewer spoke maybe 80-90% of the time. If you want to make sure you get your points in and that interview is going on and on, bring them back by saying, “Hey! I’ve experienced something like that, here’s how I dealt with it.” Tie in what they’re talking about with your strengths and accomplishments. It’s a difficult thing to do, but you’ve got to make sure after that hour-long interview, you’ve had a chance to speak about all the things you wanted to speak about.

I understand that it’s very difficult sometimes, with different personalities but if you have a chance to control an interview, you get to control the content, which is a big plus for you. Make it about what you think is important and what it needs to be about.

I hope I’ve helped.

I’m Dawn Williams from Sirius Personnel. I can be reached on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Happy Selling!