5 Things You Should NEVER Say In a Job Interview

“[…]Your words become your actions.[…] —Mahatma Gandhi

It’s about the time of the year when everybody’s looking for a job, and despite the pandemic depression, the number of job openings for the IT sector is increasing at a fast pace. So let’s say you apply for those jobs on CareerChat and are called in for job interviews. You’re now at a critical stage where what you say and show the interviewer decides whether you’ll get the job or not.

As much as it’s important to know what you SHOULD tell the interviewer, you should also be careful of the things NOT to tell the interviewer. Here are the five things you should watch out for during your interview.

1. Talking ill about your past companies.

Oftentimes, interviewers will ask you how your previous companies were. Your gut reaction might be to tell the interviewer that you didn’t like those companies. And that might be true. You might not have liked the boss. You might not have liked the work you got.

However, you shouldn’t spit out your gut reaction immediately. It’s because when the interviewers hear you talk ill about the previous company, they’ll assume you’ll do the same for the next companies and on. Or at least, they’ll get an unconscious impression of you being the type of person who talks bad about people on their backs.

That is not the impression you want to give because companies usually wish to avoid people who have the potential of becoming the nucleus of conflicts.

2. Appealing to blind desperation.

When people become desperate for jobs, they tend to show blind desperation. In other words, many people tell their interviewers that they’ll do anything for the company if they get the job. This strategy might work in some cases, but in most cases, this is a no-no.

First, you are failing to elaborate on the value you can provide for the company. Second, you’re failing to distinguish yourself from thousands of other applicants. The list goes on. In short, you’re simply telling the interviewers that you’re an easily replaceable resource. You don’t want to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master-of-none.

As a company that operates for profit, it’s natural for them to continue looking for resources that can generate more profit, and you don’t want to look like one of the generic resources that can be replaced by more efficient resources.

3. Labeling yourself without any elaboration.

In job portals like CareerChat, Naukri, or Indeed, most job seekers like to label themselves with as many skill tags as possible. It’s understandable because people want to increase their exposure chances. But on job interviews, it’s not a good strategy to label yourself without any elaboration.

Let’s say you tell interviewers that you’re a leader, quick learner, or whatever good thing you can think of. And you go on and on to describing who you are. The truth is that they will not be convinced by your labels. It’s because those labels are the things you give to people after certain events.

Job interviewers are not interested in how you describe yourself. They want to know if you can get the work done. They want to know what you’ve done to make others or you call yourself a leader. They want to know what made you think you’re a quick learner. Have you successfully lead some important projects? Or did you manage to learn new programming languages despite tight deadlines? These kinds of things are what the interviewers are interested in.

Show and demonstrate your labels. Don’t tell.

4. Giving up on questions.

When asked challenging questions, we see so many job seekers give up. They simply tell us that they don’t know the stuff. It may sound harsh, but the interviewers love to hear you tell them that you don’t know because they can easily decide internally to skip you.

What you should do instead is to try your best to link that question to something you’ve done previously. Or you can ask for more time to think about the question. That will at least give them the impression that you don’t give up easily.

Companies love problem solvers, and they understand that people can’t know answers to all questions. What they want to see during interviews is your ability to persevere and tackle challenging problems you’ve never faced before.

5. Skipping the basic company research.

At the end of the interview, many interviewers give the interviewees a chance to ask questions. But some interviewees waste this chance by asking “What does your company do?” It’s a bad sign if you ask this question because it indicates that you didn’t do the basic research for the company or the job.

Once the interviewer learns that you haven’t done your due diligence, they will assume that you’re not interested in the company or the job. If you were actually interested in the job, you should have looked up what you are signing up for.

The above five things are only the beginning of your NOT to-do list. If you want to learn more about the NOT to-dos as well as the TO-DOs, visit CareerChat and sign up for free consultations with the experts. Our true goal is purely to make you a successful person for better businesses that will lead to a better India.

CareerChat is run by a multinational company McKinley & Rice with offices in Noida, Pune, Seoul, LA, Delaware, etc.