Over the weekend the U.S. Women's golf team battled back in amazing fashion to win the Solheim Cup from Europe. But it did not come without controversy and headlines. One story I saw pop up this morning had the headline "U.S. Shocks Europe Amid Controversy". It is a longer story than I'll make it for the purposes of this blog, but basically one of the Europe team members did not concede a "gimme" par putt to a U.S. team member, the U.S. lost that hole, and eventually the match. Almost cost them the Cup. Fortunately the European player did come out this morning apologizing publicly, but the damage had already been done.
With that in mind, this serves as a reminder that you are not likely to have a change at a public apology if you create controversy in an interview. Here are a few tips I have learned over the years that I hope you find helpful:
1) Never show up late. As you can see, I continue my logic with some "no duh" statements. But this one happens more than I care to admit. I've heard all the classic excuses - traffic, getting kids off to school, parking headaches, over-sleeping, getting lost, and many more. The bottom line is that none of them really matter. Short of a traffic accident that shuts down a major road to the office you are interviewing at, almost every other excuse can be mitigated with proper planning. Showing up late is the perfect recipe for making a bad first impression.
2) Never talk poorly about a current or past employer, colleague, or business partner. Once again you would be absolutely shocked with the stories I can tell about candidates and clients doing this. For some reason people think that talking poorly about others somehow makes them look better. It only makes you look worse. Even if the other party starts talking about someone or something first. Besides, you never know when someone you are talking about poorly is actually well thought of by the other person across the desk. I will never forget one time when I was out with a colleague and we ran into someone from a vendor. This person starting talking about how much they hated their job, and in particular hated their boss. The more this person spoke of this boss of hers, the more we began to realize it was my colleague's wife. The look on this person's face when we made her aware of that fact was nothing short of complete embarrassment.
3) Never make up something about a topic you know nothing about. People are scared to death to consider using the phrase "I don't know" during an interview. When oftentimes that is the best answer, especially compared to making something up on the fly. I heard back from a client once that the candidate they interviewed tried to talk her way around every answer that she didn't know. It led to mis-truths, incorrect statements, and flat-out lies. It also led to the need to cover up those miscues with more babble that led to a quick "pass" from my client contact.
4) Never lie about your past. One of the most common occurrences with this is when someone speaks highly about an accomplishment that was really not theirs. Surprised again on this one? Don't be. The world is too small to not be found out when you exaggerate or completely concoct a story about a past accomplishment or success that was not your own. Most commonly we see this with producers and salespeople when talking about past successes. They use premium instead of revenue projections. Or only talk about new business instead of renewals. The list goes on and on. At the end of the day, however, your accomplishments should stand on their own merit or not be pointed out at all. If you have to polish that proverbial you-know-what, it wasn't worth having mentioned in the first place.
Have you experienced any controversy in the interview process? Any pearls of wisdom you could share to help others avoid the same pitfalls?
No comments:
Post a Comment