3 Reasons You Get Rejected From Interviews

Read time: 3 minutes

Welcome to Career Confidence!

You ready to get one step closer to landing your target job?

Today I’ll be sharing 3 reasons you’re getting rejected from interviews and how to fix them.

Let’s dive in.

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⛏ Job Search Tool: Use AI to Start Acing Interviews

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Deep Dive

3 Tips to Start Acing Interviews

1. Don’t be Boring (Tell Stories)

I’m sure you’re thinking “duh obviously I don’t wanna be boring, but how?”

Interviews are usually boring… but ideally you don’t want to put your interviewer to sleep. So how to keep their (likely short) attention span?

Start telling stories.

Not long ones… short and sweet. Get to the point. And don’t just share what you did, but how you did it, why it’s important, and what the impact was.

You can create themed stories that apply to most behavioral interview questions.

Some themes could be leadership, teamwork, communication, problem solving, adaptability etc.

Here’s a quick sample:

Interviewing for: Entry Level Product Marketing Manager

Experience to show (from job description): “Identify potential partners to help us reach new audiences and build co-marketing programs with them”

Situation: In my previous role as a Product Marketing Manager at a software company, I was tasked with identifying potential partners to help us reach new audiences and build co-marketing programs with them.

Challenge: The challenge was that we were a relatively small company and didn't have a large budget for marketing initiatives. Additionally, we needed to identify partners that were a good fit for our brand and product offerings, which required a thorough understanding of our target market and their needs.

Action: To address this challenge, I began by conducting extensive research into our target market and the competitive landscape. I also looked for industry events and conferences where we could connect with potential partners and build relationships with them.

I then created a list of potential partners based on their relevance to our target market and brand values. I reached out to them to propose co-marketing opportunities, such as joint webinars, guest blog posts, and social media collaborations.

Result: Through this approach, we were able to build several successful partnerships that helped us reach new audiences and drive traffic to our website. We also saw an increase in brand awareness and engagement, which helped us to build a stronger reputation in our industry.

Learning: The biggest lesson I learned from this experience is the importance of building strong relationships with potential partners and taking the time to understand their needs and goals. By approaching partnerships in a strategic and thoughtful way, we were able to achieve our marketing objectives while also building valuable connections in our industry.

Check out more examples here

Now that you’re not boring the interviewer to sleep… let’s make sure you don’t ramble.

2. Don’t Talk to Much (Be Concise)

I’m a rambler… I ramble in my day to day life so during interviews I gotta be careful not to ramble. If you do this too I’ve get your solution.

Practice outloud makes perfect (or at least pretty good)

I’ve noticed most people don’t practice their interview answers outloud. This is a HUGE mistake. Do I think you need to write every sentence you’re going to say?

Heck no.

I actually think that’ll hurt you more than anything.

But bullets points / stories / themes for your answers ahead of time are a great idea. They’ll keep you on track.

And when you practice outloud, record and time yourself.

2 minute answer? Great. Rambled for 7 min? Too long. Cut the fluff. Focus on the experiences you have that are most relevant to the job. I’m sure you have lots of information you could share. But be focused.

That leads to my next point…

Stay relevant.

3. Don’t Share Your Life Story (Stay Relevant)

This is tied to rambling.

Think of everything you possibly could share about yourself as 100% of the pie. Your interview should focus on the 10% (more or less) of the pie that’s most relevant to the job you’re interviewing for.

For example… if you’ve had 10 team projects. And if 2 of them are more relevant to the job or industry you’re interviewing for.

Highlight those in your stories.

And take it further by highlighting the relevant portions of that project to the skills of the job.

So… hopefully you’re ready to ace your next interview.

But if you have any (lingering) questions that you want answered in next weeks newsletter fill out this form.

Audience Question From Last Week

Question: How important is having a summer internship for finding a job after graduation? As a master student, I don't have an internship for the summer, how difficult would it be for my job search? How can I compensate?

Answer: Internships are helpful to (potentially) give you a return offer and therefore job security after graduation. Or/and give you relevant industry experience that you can put on your resume and enhance your ‘value’ in your applications. That said… you can definitely get a full time job offer without an internship. Your goal will be to show that you are still well suited and valuable to the jobs you’re applying to based on the experience you do have. This could be project experience, freelancing, leadership experience, independent projects etc. It’s important that these experiences are relevant to the job(s) you’re applying to (i.e. show skills that align to the role and show your value). If you don’t have enough experience to show that you know the skills for the role, you’ll have to create some through independent projects, freelancing etc.

So… to your question “How can I compensate” as long as you create / get the experiences that show you’ll be valuable to the role you’re applying to it doesn’t matter if you have an internship or not. An internship is just a convenient way to get that relevant experience and get some security.

P.S. Some other prizes include resume reviews, LinkedIn Profile reviews, monthly insider emails, and free guides - invite your friends to help you win!

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