So, we get Ned an excellent interview. We warned him when we interviewed him that he was focusing so much on “not making a mistake” and that he wasn’t selling himself in the right way. He kept going over and over and over the fact that he had made a mistake and he didn’t want to make a mistake again. We totally understand Ned’s situation. When anyone makes any kind of mistake, especially in taking a job, they don’t want to make another one.
Unfortunately, Ned went into the hiring authority and, according to the hiring authority, “he interviewed me. He had a whole list of 15 or 20 questions that he asked me before I got a chance to even interview him. Apparently, he made a mistake in his last job and he is so worried about making a mistake again, he interviewed me. I’m not interested in him.”
The lesson here is real simple. No matter how much of a mistake you made in the last job decision you made, you have to focus on interviewing well for the next job. You have to sell your features, advantages and benefits to the prospective employer. If you sell yourself well enough, the organization will give you every reason in the world that you should… or shouldn’t… go to work there.
Ned got so wrapped up in protecting himself that he didn’t interview well. What’s even worse is that when we mentioned this to him in a follow-up conversation after we spoke to the employer, he further justified the way he approached it by saying that, “he just couldn’t afford to make a mistake again.”
Ned isn’t going to get hired by anyone if he keeps approaching interviews in this manner.
