If you are out of school, congratulations, you are soon to embark on the new job of finding a job. In effect, you have already got a job, to search for a job..And I am not kidding or being sarcastic. Reality is that if you whole heartedly would like to be gainfully employed as they say, you need to go to work and give your all to the job at hand of finding a job.
By a mere stroke of luck I have found myself in this situation before (don’t we all) but I have also found myself observing people who are looking for a job at length. Now, employers do look for specific aspects in a potential employee, but don’t be fooled; however professional the search is and how well worded the job ad was, the panel is still composed of humans, who, like all humanity have predictable behavior. We like people who seem to like us, for example. Friendly people are easy to get along with and we do hope they make better employees. You could have a great track record of leadership and performance and achievement, but if you are ever not selected for job you interviewed for, don’t beat yourself too much, you did not fail the interview, you were just not the right person…and that is not failure.
I don’t want to delude you that there fore there is no need to prepare for the interview, the whole point of an interview is to present your best side, so work on it, but you can relate it to a date that even when your best is not seen as such you don’t say you failed a date, so why an interview! There are special circumstances of course, like when your potential has been misrepresented. Some of us only blossom in familiar territory - one brief interview may not be enough to show you in all your glory, hence the need to prepare, but this need should not be taken to give a picture of who you are not.
We shall agree here that if you have held a job before the last thing you will ever pray for is to be accepted for a job for which you are not suited or that is not personally stimulating. You don’t want to live your life like that. Therefore, other than wearing clean clothes and well kempt hair; working on your accent and polishing up your current affairs (like who the Minister of Portfolio is) also know that one of two things will happen. The panel will either find you suitable or not. If they do, you have every right to celebrate. That is the reason you applied.
If they don’t however, stay calm, and look at things the way they are, you did not fail, it was not an exam, it was an interview you simply did not fit the picture they wanted. Apply for more jobs. Remember, that till you find one, this is the process that should occupy you more. Put time and tact into it. Eventually you will find your calling where everyone is happy with the outcome.
Of course I am making this argument on the premise that you are otherwise fairly qualified for the job you are applying for and someone just happens to be better, the other assumption being that you are fairly treated and you had a good fighting chance, and may be there is just one required out of seven hundred applicants, like the norm is for Civil servant’s jobs. Otherwise, if you are a qualified Accountant and this is your twentieth rejection for a simple cashier’s job, barring over qualification assumptions, then may be you are living proof that one can actually fail a job interview.
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