1. Long, rambling answers;
2. Fumbling around your fit;
3. Faking something you don’t know;
4. Over-reliance on a single source of company information;
5. Obsessing past events.
Let’s take the solutions one at a time.
Long, rambling answers. First and foremost, your answers to interviewing questions need to provide clear answers in about 30 – 45 seconds. No long, rambling answers are allowed. The best way to do this is to prepare for the interview by reviewing your greatest professional achievements before the interview and being able to tell the story of each achievement in 30 seconds. We will discuss this technique in detail in future blog posts, but the summary is that you need to figure out your “greatest hits” and be able to tell them in quick story form during an interview. You will answer a question about a time you overcame adversity by telling the story of your work on the Smithville account; you will answer a questions about working in teams with the story of the group you put together to win the Jones account, and so forth.
Fumbling around your fit. Second, don’t walk into the interview until you can give two or three clear reasons why your skills are a good fit for the job at hand. Carefully read the job posting and see what they are looking for. Don’t say you bring something to the table that you don’t, but if the job posting is looking for an experienced leader who can build broad internal and external coalitions, it will obviously be in your best interest to demonstrate your ability to build such coalitions and your leadership experience. Identify a few key ways that your skills fit the job before the interview starts.
Faking something you don’t know. Third, if you are asked a content-related question (that is, a question that’s not directly about you) and you don’t know the answer, don’t fake it. Here’s why: They will probably know that you are faking it because interviewers seldom ask content-related questions that they don’t know the answer to. If you don’t know the answer to a content-related question, either ask for clarification, or just say that you don’t know. You will naturally want to answer every question an interviewer poses, but resist the urge to fake a content-related question in an interview because you are likely to get caught.
Over-reliance on a single source of company information. Fourth, don’t just use one website, or talk to one person, to prepare for an interview. Broaden your preparation to include multiple sources, especially people. Two people can have widely divergent views about a job or an organization, and you will be well served by expanding your opinion gathering to include multiple sources.
Obsessing about past events. Fifth, stop obsessing so much about the job you got fired from, the trouble you had with your last boss, or the employment gaps in your resume. We will discuss ways to handle sensitive issues in future blog posts, but the summary is that you are almost certainly worrying too much about this. Turnover is so endemic to the contemporary job market that for all you know the person interviewing you got fired from his or her last job anyway. Avoid any unflattering topics if you can, and have clear responses at the ready if you can’t avoid such topics. Focus on your fit for the job at hand, and spend less time concerning yourself with the ghosts of jobs gone by.