How to get across the finish line of an interview

If you are anything like me, you are not a hard core NASCAR fan, but watch enough SportsCenter highlights to know enough to be dangerous.  An interesting thing happened yesterday with the Daytona 500.  There was a rain delay, so the network decided to show coverage from last year.  Which confused many casual sports fans, and they thought that Jimmie Johnson won.  Little did they know at the time that they were watching the 2013 Daytona 500.

This got me thinking about how many times I have seen searches and interviews get to the "final lap", only to crash and burn before crossing the finish line.  There are several reasons for this:

1)  The spotter fails to tell the driver what is coming ahead of them.  Like I said, I don't know much about NASCAR, but I do know the pit crew has a "spotter" that is always on the radio to tell the driver what is coming around the corner.  Whether it is a crash, a change in position for the leader, or an unexpected pit stop from another driver, they are always making their driver aware of those issues.  As a recruiter I feel like it is my job to do similar duties for the candidate and client alike.  If you think you can just put it on cruise control after a few good interviews, you are usually wrong.  Listen to what your gut is telling you, but also to those you trust that are trying to help you avoid pitfalls before finishing the race or in this case the interview.

2)  Someone else causes a crash in front of you.  This can manifest itself in many different ways.  Another candidate can jump into the race late and you go from the top candidate to one of three or four in the mix.  The client could have something change internally that makes an open position more of a "want" than a "need" when the candidate is ready to move right away.  The first three people on a team to interview a candidate could love that person, but the president has the final meeting and doesn't like the candidate at all.  Any way you look at it, this is something you have to anticipate and imagine happening, even though you are really hoping it is a clean race/interview from the first lap to the last.

3)  You take a calculated gamble that doesn't pay off.  In a NASCAR race this could be deciding to skip the pit stop for gas with only ten laps to go.  In an interview it is a candidate leveraging another interview too early to see if they can get the process to move more quickly.  Or perhaps countering just to counter to get more money and it leaves a bad taste in the employer's mouth.  Or a client likes a candidate, wants to interview three more people for comparison, and is then surprised when the first candidate they spoke with has already taken another job.

I could come up with several more analogies, but the bottom line here is that preparation and communication are keys to the interview process.  You can't always see what is around the next curve, but the more you anticipate it and communicate when it does happen, the better your chances of finishing the race or interview in first place.

Have you ever had an experience where you thought you were coming to the checkered flag of an interview process only to have something go wrong?