The job interview

You’re nervous.  You want to impress.  You want them to offer you a job. 

But first, you have to get through the job interview (or in some cases, three or four).

Don’t do what Chandler Bing did...

Like Chandler, a classmate of Ken McKinnon’s (BComm 80) had a successful interview but blew it on the way out the door.  McKinnon (VP Legal Affairs and General Counsel at Critical Mass and head of the Alumni Association) recalls a bright and personable guy being interviewed at a high falutin’ law firm in Toronto.  After the hand shake, the nervous interviewee walked through the door, but it was the wrong one. 

“It was a closet” says McKinnon.  “He decided to stay in the closet thinking maybe the guy wouldn’t notice.  But after about 5 minutes, he walked out and there was the guy trying not to burst into a fit of laughter.”

Needless to say McKinnon’s classmate didn’t get the job.

But another of his classmates pulled an equally big faux pas at an interview and did get her dream job.  The third interview was at a restaurant for lunch, McKinnon says.   “She’s nervous and she managed to hit her plate with her hand and drop her entire lunch on her lap.  She put her plate on the table, took her napkin and put her lunch back on her plate and kept on talking and eating.”    Rolling with the punches helped her land the job.

"Be yourself and remember, everyone’s human," advises McKinnon. 

And don’t forget to say thank you for the job interview adds Tag Goulet, (BA 1981 MA 1986) and co-creator of fabjob.com.   Years ago, she didn’t get a job as a graphic designer at an advertising agency.  Nonetheless, she wrote a gracious letter thanking the senior designer for the interview and wishing the successful applicant the best.

“A couple of weeks later I got a phone call and the head designer from this other agency and he says ‘I need a designer to start tomorrow!  So and so said you were great!  Can you start tomorrow?!’”  Goulet took the job on the spot and says it was a direct result of her thank you letter.  “A complete stranger phoned me up and hired me based on that!”

For more information on nailing the job interview visit http://www.ucalgary.ca/careers/studentsandalumni/interviewinfo. To practice your interview skills, try the online mock interview module in OptimalResume.