Why do Candidates fail to Impress in Interviews? This is a genuine question and everyone needs the answer. Searching for a job is a very hectic process and has many moving steps like crafting an interview-winning resume, equipping with required information about the company and interviewer, re-aligning the job descriptions, and revising the professional skills.
Getting an interview call is not a big deal but winning in that interview is an art. Searching and getting a job is a hectic process. If you are getting failed in the interview, it’s simple, we can say you are not good enough but sometimes not having the required skills, experience, and qualifications doesn’t mean you will fail.
Failure and success are a part of life but failing in interviews again and again and losing the right opportunities are always painful and cause depression.
Just imagine, you went for an interview with high morale and with good preparation but unfortunately, you couldn’t meet the interviewer’s expectations. No need to worry, failing in an interview is a part of the job-hunting process. But the most important point is what you learned from the failure and mistakes. If you are learning from your failure and mistake and grooming yourself gradually, then it’s a positive thing and you are moving towards your success but if you are not learning the lesson and repeating the same mistake, then you need to get worried.
Remember employers know about their requirements for the role and what they need from job-seekers to bring to the table. They post the job advertisement after proper homework, planning, and keeping in mind the available resources. They know the industry standards and prevailing market situation for the jobs. So, know yourself before going for an interview, equip yourself with proper requirements and information and get yourself ready for the question and answers sessions. Wok on the mistakes you already made in your previous interviews and improve yourself to avoid making the same mistakes again.
There might be many reasons for losing the opportunity on your side or even from the employer’s side but you should have an idea of all these if you want to win the interview.
On the basis of my experience, I am enlisting here some very important reasons for failing yourself in interviews and you must try to avoid these in your interview process.
- Not Doing Homework: You haven’t done your homework properly. Employers want to see professionalism and preparedness.
- Didn’t Follow the Direction: You missed making your first impression by not following some important directions about CV or documents and other requirements.
- Communication Problem: You didn’t communicate properly and couldn’t convince the interviewer about your competency level.
- Lacking Core Expertise: You might be lacking in core technical expertise and interpersonal abilities required for the role.
- Not Having Enough Experience: You didn’t have enough experience and professional skills required to perform the role for which you were interviewed.
- Displaying Negative Attitude: You displayed a negative attitude or you were negative about your previous or current employer.
- Not researching About the Company: You didn’t research well about the firm and fail to answer the questions about the interviewer’s firm.
- Failing to Explain Yourself: You fail to explain why you want this job and what you are looking for in your job search.
- Failing to Build Rapport: You failed to build rapport with the interviewer with poor eye contact and a lack of confidence level.
- Not Sending Thank You Email: You didn’t send a ‘thank you note, email or didn’t have a follow-up call after an interview.
- Having Unprofessional Presence on Social Media: You have an unprofessional presence on social media particularly on LinkedIn and your social media profiles are stuffed with bad content.
- Didn’t have proper Shake Hand: You didn’t give a proper shake hand to the interviewer at the start and end of the interview, you were too casual and overconfident or you gave a bone-cracking shake hand.
- Lying and Giving Wrong Answers: You lied or gave the wrong answer and your responses were not reliable. It’s okay not to know everything but You lied about your experience, previous role, job descriptions, and qualifications.
- Not Asking the Right Questions: You didn’t ask the right questions. Make sure that, when you do ask questions, ask the relevant and right ones.
- Not Showing Excitement/Interest: You looked too bored, yawning, and not paying attention. It shows you are not interested and didn’t show excitement about the role and company.
- Appearing too nervous/Shy: You appeared too nervous, bored, shy, and didn’t handle the interview with confidence.
- Having the smell of Smoke & Poor Hygiene: You may have the smell of smoke or alcohol and didn’t clean your teeth and yourself properly.
- Interrupting the Interviewer: You interrupted the interviewer many times during questions or jumped to answer without understanding or you didn’t listen patiently.
- Not Coming on Time: You came too late or too early and you start complaining about waiting too long.
- Inappropriate Dressing: You have not dressed appropriately; you wear sunglasses, a scarf, wrinkled stuff.
- Forgetting detail in the CV: You forget or don’t know what’s written on your CV or your responses were not aligned with the detail on your CV.
- Unprofessional Behavior: You didn’t use proper body language and look uninterested and chewing gum.
- Asking Personal Questions: You asked personal questions about the interviewer and many other irrelevant questions.
- Failing to Explain Answers with Examples: You fail to give proper responses with real-time examples, illustrations, and situations.
- You look Directionless: The interviewer observes, you look directionless and you are not clear in your career aspiration.
- Being Too Humble: You look too humble and want to work in any condition, this is just like begging for the opportunity. You must show your respect to the interviewer but take care of your respect as well.
- Too Demanding and Focusing on Benefits: You were too demanding and focused on benefits you will get instead of focusing on what you can deliver to the organization. You started asking for salary in the initial stages.
Conclusion:
Why do Candidates fail to Impress in Interviews? Winning an interview game is completely depends on your preparedness in advance. Look, the first impression always counts, and to make an initial impression, your CV must be very well crafted as per industry norms. Secondly, to win the interviewer confidence you have to prepare yourself well for an interview and how you demonstrate your professionalism, your skills, and your qualification to the interviewer always counts and your pleasant and formal engagement with the interviewer and his staff will make a great impression and helps you land in your dream job.