Why You Failed to Get That Dream Job

Lack of Interview Preparation Just Cost You The Job.

Over the years, I’ve observed a lot of people miss out on their dream jobs. It’s never a nice thing, making a call to someone who is overwhelmingly bought into a job opportunity – they’ve worked out public transport, where they can have lunch and even considered a tattoo of the company logo (okay that’s not quite right, but you get what I mean!).

It is one of the hardest things to do in our role – to let a candidate know that someone else has been appointed to the role they had their hopes pinned on. It’s even worse when you know that the person you were speaking with was the overwhelming favourite prior to the interviews.

We had an exceptional candidate interviewing for a role. He was the overwhelming favourite – so much so, that when the client came in to meet the shortlisted candidates, they asked for additional time with him. On paper and in terms of what we had said about his personality, fit and buy-in for the role – he was an exceptional candidate. So what happened?

A better-prepared candidate happened.

This candidate had gone through the job description (in neat writing that reflected the care she would take with her future employer’s accounts) and noted down on it examples of how she had done this in previous roles. 

She had noted down (again in her neat writing) the questions that she had. They were decent questions too which showed that she had really thought about the role and the organisation. She conveyed not only her interest in the role but also her commercial acumen.

She finished off her interview by showing that she understood what the company was about, what their values were and she made sure she thanked them for the opportunity to meet and re-iterated how interested she was in the role.

The (previously) favoured candidate didn’t stand a chance.

Irrespective of how good your profile fits for a job, or how well you would fit into an organisation – the reality is that the interview process requires attention, focus and preparation.

Don’t be that candidate who just missed out on their dream job because someone else was better prepared for the interview.