The 6 job interviews you can never win


By Neil Patrick

There are six job interview situations, in which it doesn’t matter how good you are, how excellently your perform at the interview, you will not get hired.

For all the talk about excellent hiring practices, process quality, talent management, investing in people, the hiring process has always been and will continue to be imperfect.

If you are struggling to understand why you didn’t get hired for a job you were easily the best candidate for, I’m willing to wager that one of the following six reasons applied.

Here they are:

1. The comfort factor. These are legitimate reasons from the employer’s point of view. They include your current or previous salary level, relocation requirements, and recent experience. You may be perfectly willing to settle for a lower salary than you have enjoyed previously. You may also be perfectly happy to up sticks and move to the other side of the country. And learn any new skills that may be required. But the employer will perceive that these adjustments will make you feel uncomfortable and hence less motivated. Result: you’re rejected. 

2. Your age. I’m not just talking about discrimination against older candidates here either. For some roles, the grey hair factor is a definite plus. Of course it’s nonsense. And yes it’s also illegal, but it’s so easy to dodge the accusation of age bias, that plenty of employers can and do. 

3. The internal candidate. Firms will sometimes advertise a position even when they have no intention of hiring because they have an internal candidate lined up. But the company wants to legitimise this decision, so they benchmark the internal candidate against who else is available. The odds are heavily stacked against you in this situation. The internal candidate, who is a known quantity is almost guaranteed to get the job.



4. You’re better than your boss. Again, this is almost impossible to win; the hiring manager feels that you are so competent that you could do their job. Even if you don’t want their job, and are fully prepared to be a supportive sub-ordinate, they will worry that your expertise may expose shortcomings in their own. The outcome is they will choose a less well qualified candidate. 

5. Looks matter. Nepotism is alive and well. So is positive discrimination that favours the physically attractive. The sad truth is that if you’re up against someone with film star good looks, they’ve got an automatic bonus card over you. I won’t even discuss what happens when a hiring manger feels a strong physical attraction to a candidate. 

6. Incompetent interviewers. Hiring managers are rarely trained interviewers. This has always been a problem, and it’s become worse. In the tough times we have gone through, interview skills training for every manager is a luxury few can afford. The result is that at best your technical competencies will get a fair appraisal, but your other soft competencies and value adding capabilities will not. Worse an untrained interviewer may be easily influenced by a less competent candidate that can dazzle them with slick talking.

If you have an interview failure and any one of these situations applies, you can at least take consolation that even though you were not chosen, it doesn’t reflect badly on you.

Yes, it’s not fair. Yes it may be counterproductive for the employer. But you can walk away with your self-confidence intact…and that’s exactly what you should do. Never take such situations personally and move on, safe and confident in the knowledge that you were not beaten by a better person.

If you've experienced any of these situations, do please share these in the comments below.



10 comments:

  1. This article by Neil Patrick quickly helps jobseekers see six valid reasons you won’t win an interview. Jobseekers often think that they did something wrong when a job offer isn’t made following an interview. Note that none of these six reasons are immediately in the control of the jobseeker. I encourage every jobseeker to read this post.

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    1. I'm so glad I read this post. I recently had a failure of a phone screening. The company said they felt I demonstrated a lack of confidence and also had a problem with me not memorizing the job description posted online. I have a valid medical excuse for taking every word I read to the most literal extreme. Therefore, knowing that many employers exaggerate the requirements in their job ads, reading the ads and memorizing the job description will actually reduce my confidence and then they still don't want me. Reading Neil's blog has helped me feel better about my job search. But I prefer to focus on my social goals more of the time because the American economy is still in a shambles and is likely to stay that way for years or decades.

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    2. Thank you for sharing your experiences here Adam. I am delighted to hear that found my comments helpful. You are right, the job description contains every single desireable attribute the company can think of. But it's not set in stone and the candidates who display the greatest preparation and enthusiasm can often compensate for the odd shortcoming versus the JD. Keep your spirits up and never quit my friend!

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  2. Neil, thank you for a great post. You confirm what I have known for sometime as a job candidate there is a great deal you cannot control. I am forwarding a link to your post to my Career Center colleagues to share with our students. I agree with Marcia every jobseeker should read this.

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    1. Thanks for posting here Guy. It seems inappropriate to say I'm pleased you liked the post, since it contains such unpleasant truths, but I do sincerely appreciate your endorsement. II'll be delighted to receive details about any further experiences that you or any of your students wish to share here. Like everything in life, I think it's a pointless waste of time and energy getting worked up about the things we can't control...

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  3. At the risk of twisting my arm patting myself on the back, I've definitely experienced #4. (Others too, but this one in particular.)

    To cite one example several years back... I was interviewing for a position focusing on plastics design. The two co-workers said I clearly knew my stuff design-wise. The hiring manager was, I think, intimidated by how much I knew - not just about designing in plastics, but also knowledge of tooling, SPC, process controls... soup-to-nuts of what it took to get a product up and running. And HIS manager said that I clearly knew more about plastics than anyone there.

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  4. Neil - great article. I can relate to so many of the scenarios. I have been stopped by #1 through #4, and it is incredibly frustrating.

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    1. Thanks so much Jeff. I am only sorry that I have absolutely no solutions to any of these situations. Worse, the incidence of several of them seems to be on the rise. All anyone can do is keep their self-belief, press on and refuse to be beaten.

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  5. I have had all of these happen to me in last five years and recently. However I live in a tight market.

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    1. I am sorry that you have the full set David. One of these is enough to infuriate most people. The number of what you call 'tight markets' is rising particularly as AI and technology continues to replace human capital. Figuring out how we can embrace the change in our job specialism is going to become a critical job survival skill I think.

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