It’s nearly the end of a long term and I thought it was time for a little light relief! I saw a really entertaining article in the Manchester Evening News this week about jobseekers and their strange interview habits: I thought I’d share a few with you so that you could feel better about yourselves and how normal and sane you are when approaching your jobseeking!
The two most obvious mistakes, according to this article, were in dress and mannerisms. Academia is quite an easy interview to dress for I suppose, stick with plain and conservative and you can’t go far wrong, for both sexes. However, imagine if you were going for a graphic design job, or a fashion writers’ position, what sort of sartorial nightmares would that throw up? Should you dress down in interviews for jobs where colleagues regularly wear jeans and t-shirt? One poor woman interviewed for a position in fashion turned up in a ball gown: hardly the time or the place but she certainly made an impression.
Controlling your verbal mannerisms is another tough one, mostly errors here are caused by nerves. If you here yourself saying ‘like’ or ‘you know’ lots of times, sure enough the harder you try to stop, the more you will say them! But sometimes preparation is the key: knowing the sorts of awkward questions you may be asked will help you avoid this classic. OK, so the question ‘what is your worst feature?’ is a tough one. But answering ‘my dishonesty’ isn’t going to do yourself any favours is it?!
There, don’t you feel better that you have never made a real interview faux pas? Or have you? Share them with everyone here!
