Things to avoid during your Interview

Jatin Srivastava
3 min readDec 27, 2020

Things that can ruin your interview

Introduction

It is always important to know that an interview is where you only talk about professional things, stay ground to earth and stay positive about everything you speak. But some people often make mistakes while giving an interview.

Whether a hiring manager feels like you’re fit for the job depends on anything you say. Even something you don’t consider unacceptable during a job interview can make the interviewer reject you. And occasionally, it can be tempting to give a response that seemed correct at the moment, but in perspective was incredibly bad and made you look frail or mediocre. Therefore, it is important to consider what you should avoid saying in advance.

Following are a few lines that might piss off an interviewer:-

· “Oh I saw you recently got married”

It is advisable that before you go to your interview, you should do a background search about your hiring manager so you can discuss his/her life achievements in the interview. But some people get mistaken by that. By doing a background search I don’t mean knowing about their family or personal life. Sometimes with the flow you might want to bring their family topic in between the conversation but do not do that it is not advisable. Keep your interview strictly professional. Ask them about their recent achievements or how did they achieve it or something like that.

· “My previous manager was toxic”

No matter what you’ve been through in your previous company, never talk negatively about it. if you are asked why you left your previous job or if you want to tell the interviewer why you left you can put it more positively. You can say that the job was not the right fit for you or the environment was not a very perfect fit or anything that sounds a bit positive yet you prove your point in that sentence.

if you had a bad experience in your previous company then I am pretty sure that you must have learnt a lot from there. You can mention that. For example, you can mention how you learnt to become calmer or how you handled the pressure well.

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· “I see myself as a perfect person hence I don’t have weaknesses”

When questioned “what are your weaknesses?” you should think before answering. The question is very tricky. Finding the right balance of honesty and confidence is important. Every weakness can indeed be presented as a strength if you have the skill but the boundary between speaking the right thing and becoming overconfident is a fine line and you should know it.

· “Let’s talk about the company now. Tell me about it”

This statement is not acceptable because it is advisable to know about the company before you walk for an interview. Asking this kind of question can be insulting sometimes. As mentioned in the first point instead of talking about the company should talk about your hiring manager's achievements and success. If the hiring manager has invested their time in knowing you, then they expect you to do the same.

There are some more points you should avoid while giving an interview:-

· Being over smart

Sometimes you might think answering a question in a certain way will make you look smart but sometimes you might look over smart while answering the question. Understand the fine line between being smart and over smart.

· Not controlling your what you say

Always think before you even speak a work in front of your interviewer. Don’t get excited and start talking about unacceptable things. The way you speak also matters a lot and speaks about you.

· Not keeping your attitude under an acceptable level

You might think if you are perfectly qualified for a position you can show off yourself with all your attitude. Anyone’s attitude is only acceptable up to a certain extent after that anyone can get pissed. So watch it!

Credits: Rock Grow

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Jatin Srivastava

An enthusiastic learner on a mission to fill the education gap in terms of guiding students on how to use LinkedIn for jobs & prepare for off-campus interviews.