Six Ways to Avoid Blowing Your Job Interview

For nearly five months, I’ve been trying to fill a few positions at our human capital firm, and along the way I’ve learned quite a lot about the many ways job candidates can blow their job prospects—obvious and not so obvious. In this still-challenging economy, it is not what the company can do for you, but what value you bring to the company. You should focus addressing any issues that could keep your candidacy from moving forward, and try NOT to shoot yourself in the foot with one of these moves.

Being Arrogant

Hiring managers want people who are confident—but most also want team players who work well in groups. There is a very fine line when it comes expressing confidence in an interview and what hiring managers see as being arrogant or cocky….

How Not to Look Desperate

Desperate times can lead you to show how desperate really are to land that job. But no matter how tough a time you’ve been having—dwindling savings, unemployment running out, bills overdue—that’s the last impression you want to give a prospective employer.

Job hunting is like dating. People are attracted to confidence and turned off by the hard-up. So how can you seem self-assured while looking for work and land that job as the market heats up? Keep in mind these dos and don’ts.

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Remember that the more you have going on, the less desperate you will feel…

Sotomayor Had It Easy

A severe company-wide crisis is underway and, as a mid-level manager, you have to decide: Push forward with a risky new plan that could save jobs and bring in more revenue — if it works — or scrap your costly team now and stay the course. But wait. Now you’re a lower-level worker facing the same situation from a different perspective. How do your elegancies shift? Would you remain loyal to the company? Or stand by your fellow co-workers as part of a team?

Such role-playing games are the type of exercises Hallie Crawford, a certified career coach in Atlanta, Ga., says some of her clients are being run through in job interviews. “It’s kind of a no-win situation,” Crawford says of the above scenario, which a recent client faced. Side with upper management and you’re a yes man; side with co-workers and you‘re disloyal.

Think this week’s vetting process for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was tough? Try sitting through just about any mid-level job interview these days …

Gigonomics: Screen Gems

This was a big hectic week with a full slate of interviews. After weeks of resume launching, the tide turned and I was on the hot seat for hours of questions by company executives who seemed more intent on finding ways to disqualify me than reasons to bring me on board. I chalk that up to the fact that the job market is thick with fish, and any cast of the net is going to bring in some big ones, so hiring managers are especially choosy these days. Perhaps even a bit smug.

I don’t blame them in the least. When I was a corporate gatekeeper, I knew as a hiring manager that I must take advantage of the present available talent glut and work hard to winnow the field to the precious few who 1) exceeded the job requirements and 2) were grateful enough so that they would work beyond all human capacity, gain measurable efficiencies for the company, and justify the hiring manager’s decision. This makes the interview game precarious and nerve-wracking, as hiring managers now have a plethora of candidates and one wrong move, one fumbled name pronunciation or ill-timed attempt at humor on the part of the interviewee (now me) may be grounds for swift disqualification…

The 5 Questions You Should Ask an Interviewer

Trust me: it’s different now. In this economy, where unemployment is high and you have many more job seekers than jobs, you can’t afford to improvise on the interview. So yes, if you got called in to talk about a position, be psyched. But then knuckle down and do some prep work.

Find out as much as you can about the position you’re interviewing for, how the process will go, and who will be interviewing you. Research the people you’ll be talking to (use Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and real-life contacts) so you have common ground to discuss, and check out the company and the competition.

Wait, you’re not done yet. You still have to ace the interview. These five questions will pull you ahead of the pack:…

Gigonomics: Gesture Politics

When I tentatively raised my right hand to attend to an itchy earlobe, my steely-eyed interviewer matched my movements, only with his left hand. In nonverbal parlance, I knew a left-handed gesture meant one thing: he was lying, and I was toast.

Thankfully, I was only practicing interview techniques in the mirror. If I had wanted to press it, I’m sure my two-dimensional doppelganger would have agreed to a million bucks a year salary and five days off per week. I am so worth it.

Be that as it may, you should consider practicing your interviewing chops in front of a mirror, a tolerant spouse, or a sympathetic schnauzer to be time well spent. You can edit down those “ums” and “wells” to a manageable couple of dozen, rehearse rough patches, and work through some of the heebie jeebies that attend a career-on-the-line grilling at the hands of a potential manager who no doubt is your intellectual inferior.

What’s vital, however, is to monitor body language. Most job search experts agree that nonverbal body language represents 50 to 60 percent of what we are communicating to others.…