Job Tuition

What Not To Do In An Interview

December 6th, 2006 by Jennine

I must admit I’m surprised. I interviewed a young woman recently and let’s just say her interview skills were appalling. If we weren’t desperate to fill the position then I wouldn’t even contemplate employing her. If she had read my earlier pieces about interviews the interview may have gone a lot better.

Negative Point One - Jeans

She wore jeans! Even though she was going to her regular job after the interview still does excuse the fact that she wore jeans. Besides the jeans she was well presented and I felt that the appearance of denim let her down in this regard.

Negative Point Two – Poor Responses

She didn’t appear confident answering our questions, was ill prepared for the interview and nerves just overrode every response. There was a lot of nervous giggling, no eye contact and hair fiddling.

I will admit that this interview was sprung on her last night and she did bring it forward 45 minutes due to prior work commitments. However, we weren’t asking difficult questions and you should be able to recall what you studied at your local College.

Negative Point Three – Questions for interviewers

The only question she asked was “are there any other people you are interviewing besides me? Good question and you have every right to know, however don’t make that your singular question. Ask what your role will be, what skills you will need, if you require training, anything that makes you look interested and keen to start.

Negative Point Four – Typing

This is a very big thing for me at the moment as I’m stunned by how many people can use computers but have a very low typing speed. We have workers in our offices that have a typing speed of below 45 wpm. This is not a high target and many offices now require typing speeds of over 50 wpm.

She has been working in offices since she completed a traineeship and still only has a typing speed of 25 wpm, she has great accuracy but at that speed so you should. My point here is if you want to work in Administration get your speed up to at least 45 wpm otherwise you are going to get turned down before they go any further with your application.