r/interviews • u/dtman237 • 18h ago
Best FEELING interview in a while
New to posting on Reddit and have been lurking here for a while. Apologies if my points are overdone/not worth mentioning but felt compelled. I wouldn’t say I “struggle” socially but definitely not Type A so I work to understand cues and try different methods to connect with people. Happy to add specific context if you have any questions but wanted to convey the high level points.
Laid off in the spring and shortly after was dinged in 2 final rounds for roles I really wanted and 1st/2nd round exits sprinkled in after those. Fairly demoralizing to then go months without even that same traction (summer). I’m a 2020 graduate and like to think I’m fairly resilient at this point: took forever to find a job out of college, multiple offers rescinded, dozens of interviews, etc. My career has always been “behind” my goals and that has caused me a lot of stress. But after being laid off I truly stopped “caring” in the sense that I accepted that the job market is bigger than me and variables will be constantly out of my control.
Applying this mentality to yesterday’s interview, I did the following things going in and some I don’t usually do: ————————————————————————- - Minimal online research, a few talking points about the company and the background of the interviewer - 3 job description read throughs on separate days, not obsessing over it and trying to sound jargon-y in relating my experience - Thought through my “background” in a light hearted way, to where I conveyed long standing interest in the industry, and would essentially have my layoff as a footer, where I intentionally inject a smile/chuckle to show it’s simply a bump in the road. I think in 90% of my interviews this is the first question asked, so I started strong and light hearted and didn’t really prepare for the rest. - When discussing the layoff, I framed it as something I anticipated and knew as a going-in risk: volatile market, high growth role, whatever applicable, took blame off myself AND the company, showing self-awareness and humility and that I’m “onwards and upwards” and not stewing, taking myself too seriously, or even subconsciously displaying a bad attitude. I’ve found that this framework consistently disarms the interviewer, and they seem to join my team and become my advocate, versus viewing me as salty or desperate. - Answered the remaining questions sometimes after brief non-awkward pauses, especially when I knew my response immediately, showing thoughtfulness and physically slowing down my brain and the pacing of the conversation. - Started my questions by asking about something fairly specific to her title that connects to the overall mission of the company. Say it’s Subway and you’re interviewing the Head of Bread for the position of Sandwich Maker, I asked what advantage the bread making process at Subway has versus Jersey Mikes and Jimmy John’s. People want to feel like they’re contributing to something, and it shows you are interested in what they do for the company too and not just your own role within it. Generally opens the floodgates to energetic responses to my remaining questions, once in a while backfires if the interviewer is disengaged and doesn’t feel like diving into their own role (but often not moving forward in that type of interview anyway lol). - Concluded by very briefly asking about timeline for next steps, but really ad-libbed my “closer” as thinking about what I actually took away from the conversation: genuinely offered a lot of insight about the company, offered genuine advice about working there, etc. So I briefly thanked her for those specific things versus some canned response about how “I learned so much and reaffirmed in my interest blah blah”
While I don’t even know the results of this one yet, it really felt like the best interview I’ve had in a while. Fun, low stress, not interrogative, and it all started from a mentality of not caring so much with the results. In my mind, it doesn’t matter if I need the job, running out of money, or nervous, because that doesn’t help me to secure a job. For my own mental health, I didn’t over-invest on prep or the position and if it works out, great, if not, it was fun.
Tl;dr best interview experience in a while due to acting semi-nonchalant and framing answers/questions in a more humanized way, not over- investing for my mental health and enhanced interview performance.
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u/wastedspacex 13h ago
Thank you for these tips. Have a dream role interview with execs and CEO on Wends. Feels really high stakes.