1. Long, rambling answers;
2. Fumbling about your fit;
3. Faking something you don’t know;
4. Over-reliance on a single source of company information;
5. Obsessing about past events.
Let’s take these mistakes one at a time.
Long, rambling answers. Your responses to interviewing questions should provide clear answers in about 30–45 seconds. No long, rambling answers are allowed. Prepare concise responses by reviewing your greatest professional achievements before the interview and practice telling 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. For example, you would respond to a question about a time you overcame adversity by telling the story of your work on the Smithville account; you would answer a question about working in teams with the story of the group you put together to win the Jones account, and so forth.
Fumbling about your fit. Don’t walk into the interview until you can give two or three clear reasons why your skills and experiences are a good fit for the job. 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 abilities and experiences in these areas. Identify a few key ways that you fit the job before the interview starts.
Faking something you don’t know. It’s not fatal to your chances not to have an answer for a question, but it might be fatal if you get caught faking a response. You should obviously be able to answer any question about you or about your experiences. Sometimes, interviewers will ask you content-related questions (i.e. testing your knowledge of something: “How many widgets can a retrofitted widget factory make in 1 hour?”) or process-related questions (i.e. testing your knowledge of a process: “How would you market this service to left-handed mothers through the Internet?”). If you get stumped, 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 your way through a content-related or a process-related question.
Over-reliance on a single source of company information. Use more than one website and talk to more than one person inside the company (when possible) to prepare for an interview. Two people can have widely divergent views about a job or an organization, and you will be well served by broadening your preparation to include multiple sources of information.
Obsessing about past events. Finally, 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.