CMU School of Drama


Friday, July 21, 2017

Doing This One Thing Can Hurt Your Job Interview Chances

www.fastcompany.com: Of course there are lots of ways you can sabotage an interview. But we’re going to assume you know better than to lie on your resume, bash your previous employer, or perhaps worst of all, show up totally unprepared. So let’s talk about one thing you might not realize is hurting your chances of landing a new job: being inconsistent.

3 comments:

Sidney Rubinowicz said...

I find this article particularly relevant because of today’s three college interview workshops. It stresses the less obvious elements of an job application that could really make a difference, specifically consistency. In production management, we learned to create comprehensive, distinguishable spreadsheets that definable to a specific show. Any discrepancies could lead to confusion among department heads. In drafting, we learned to maintain the same light thickness for each specified line weight. This shows how consistency can be applied to a variety of fields, in this context, an interview. If an applicant says or does something other than what they wrote on their resume, they are being inconsistent and very dishonest. Even if the applicant does get the job, they could be fired shortly thereafter if their lie becomes evident. This can be intentional as well as an unconscious decision. Applicants often fluff up their skill section to appear more valuable to their interviewer, which could hurt them in the long run. It is important to remain entirely truthful, especially with credits and references, because your employer can and will find out what’s true.

Unknown said...

I also believe that interviews are such tricky things, because you always need to make sure that everything you say is accurate, true, and ensure that the employer or interviewer knows exactly what you did, which in some cases can be difficult to explain briefly. For example if someone puts "responsible for lighting" this could raise the question of whether or not they were the designer, master electrician, both, or some other position or combination of positions. And if the employer sees some small discrepancy, even if it was not on purpose, this could lead to a lack of trust and the thought that the applicant is dishonest, essentially ruining their chances of getting a job. This is why, especially now , in the digital age when almost everything is easily accessible by the employer, applicants should spend lots of time making sure that no information is false or misleading.

DJ Lesh said...

When I first stumbled upon this article, it caught my eye as it is extremely relevant to us right now as we begin the college process. Interviews can be both extremely useful and hard things to accomplish well. For me, I often rely on interviews as I feel they give a much better representation of who I really am versus what I look like on paper. I strongly agree that consistency is very important in an interview, especially in theater. One thing that comes to mind when I think about this is in talking about what you did on a show. Any differences in what you say you did on a show and what other people say you did on a show could drastically hurt your chances of getting a job. On top of this, a job title may mean different things to different people. It is important to explain what you did to avoid this confusion. It is very important to stay consistent and tell the truth when applying for a job.