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This is why you're not hearing back after job
interviews
One common disqualifier you may not
have considered is that you came off as too negative in your interview.
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Oct. 23, 2018 / 1:45 PM EDT
By Emily Moore
Most job
seekers are perceptive enough to know when an interview isn’t going
well. So if you arrive late, can’t answer a question or totally botch a
response, you’re not exactly surprised when you don’t receive an invite to move
forward. But every once in a while, you’ll have an interview that you think
went great only to get rejected (or worse, ghosted) by the
recruiter.
You might
wonder if the interviewers deemed you unqualified, or if the position went to
an internal candidate
instead. But one common disqualifier you may not have considered is that you
came off as too negative in your interview.
“Negativity in
any form automatically taints the interview,” says Wemi Opakunle, Recruiter at
Netflix and author of the upcoming book Thank God It’s Monday: 52 Weekly
Inspirational Messages to Blast Away Your Monday Blues. “The
focus of the interview is to get to know you and see how you can contribute to
and elevate the company. A candidate’s approach should be focused on presenting
yourself as a solution. The moment you become a problem or present yourself as
anything other than a solution, the interviewer puts up a mental red flag.”
So how can you
tell if you’re guilty of excessive negativity, and what can you do to fix it?
We turned to the experts for answers.
When Negativity Strikes
To be clear,
you don’t have to be a negative person in general to come off the wrong way in
a job interview. Even the most cheerful and optimistic among us fall victim to
negativity from time to time, particularly in response to certain topics, such
as why you want to leave your
current position or company.
Often,
candidates “feel the best answer to this question is to cite the shortcomings
of their previous employer,” which “can quickly lead to a tangential
description of the faults [of] managers or a list of a company’s shortcomings,”
explains Mollie Moric, Career Advisor and Hiring Manager at
Resume Genius. “The main purpose of a job interview is to sell
yourself, your ability to complete a role, fit in with a company and be a
positive addition to a team. Your interviewer isn’t concerned with how much of
a jerk your previous manager was or how poorly the company was run.”
Besides wasting valuable time that could be used to highlight how
great you are, these rants reflect poorly on your character. Career coach Lisa
Lewis shares that those who complain about former employers “often
come across as someone stuck in the past or feeling like a victim,” while
Opakunle points out that “any employer who hears you speaking negatively about
a past company in a first meeting will assume you’ll do the same about them.”
It’s also easy
to sound overly cynical and/or self-critical when you talk about weaknesses and
mistakes, given that they are an inherently negative topic.
“The
appropriate answer to this question requires a candidate to provide a list of
weaknesses accompanied by examples of how they’ve overcome each one. However,
an unprepared candidate may opt to divulge a list of their greatest weaknesses
and how they’ve affected their life instead of a more appropriate response,”
Moric says.
Talking about
past employers and weaknesses or mistakes aren’t the only situations in which
negativity can slip through, though. Other indications your conversation has
taken a turn for the worse include “sighing, breaking eye contact, seeing fewer
smiles or head nods, noticing longer pauses in between their questions, ending
an interview earlier than the scheduled time or getting the feeling that the
tone of the conversation has taken on a slow, heavy energy,” Lewis says.
How to Change Your Tone
Experts
recommended several key strategies to avoid excess negativity. For example,
don’t talk about why you want to leave your current job — instead, try
“describing the traits of the work and workplace you’re seeking for your next
move,” Lewis suggests. “When you focus on your own agency and the positive
attributes you want, you can take a potentially very negative situation and
turn it into a positive opportunity.”
Similarly, if
asked to bring up an example of a mistake you’ve made or a challenge you’ve
encountered, “follow each negative comment with a way in which you were able to
make the situation positive in the end,” Moric advises. “For example, if you
experienced a significant period of unemployment, explain how you took online
courses to update your skills or spent time volunteering to give back to the
community.”
You can also
try “talking about the lessons you learned from a challenging situation and
mentioning all the resources you now use to handle similar issues differently
to find a better resolution,” Lewis adds.
But perhaps the
most important thing you can do is practice answering common interview questions
aloud before your interview takes place.
“If you know
that you have residual negative feelings about a point in your career that
might come up in your interview, prepare your answers for those topics
beforehand. Instead of getting triggered by a negative feeling and botching an
important interview question, you’ll be able to provide well-thought-out
answers that offer a positive perspective on an otherwise difficult topic,”
Moric says.
Of course, life
is always going to be full of both positives and negatives, so you don’t need
to pretend that nothing bad has ever happened to you. But there’s a big
difference between experiencing something negative and dwelling on it.
“If you’ve had
something negative happen, don’t ignore it completely or pretend it didn’t
happen. Interviewers want transparency and authenticity from you in the interview to
be able to feel like they can trust you,” Lewis says. “But ensure that as you
reflect, you show signs of separation and growth from the situation rather than
coming across as still entrenched in the thick of the emotional consequences.”
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