4 Candidates That Employers Don’t Want to Hire

Employers seem to share many of the same broad preferences during the hiring process, regardless of job title and regardless of industry. The job seekers who display certain traits or behaviors like those below, despite having great backgrounds and skill sets, are almost guaranteed to lose the job.

If you find yourself described below and also notice you’re losing opportunities, keeping an eye out for these bad interview habits should turn your luck right around upon going for the job that you want and deserve. Here they are:

1. Acting Overeager – It’s not when the candidates respond to the initial hiring inquiry or when they follow-up with a thank you after an email, it is how they do so. Some candidates make the mistake of overzealously driving home how much they like the company or the interviewer, making them appear desperate.

We all want what we can’t have and tend to shy away from what we can have way too easily. Therefore, one or two sentences regarding the above should do it. Any more and you risk sounding overly needy and thus risk losing the job.

2. Coming Across As Disinterested – There is a polar opposite of overeage
ess and it is affecting a complete lack of interest. Not writing a thank you note or not displaying interest in the company, nor recognizing that the interviewer took their time to speak with you, telegraphs the message that you couldn’t care less.

Many job seekers try to bust out high school hard to get tactics. In a job search, however, a blasé attitude makes you come across as high maintenance and also makes the interviewer conce
ed as to how many companies you may be interviewing with.

3. Showing You Can’t Listen – Many job seekers arrive at an interview overly prepped for the meeting to the point where their overeage
ess to hit certain talking points totally bypasses what the interviewer has to say and actually wants to hear.

Interviewing success comes from practice and listening. If you go into an interview with a script, you are going to come out with a disappointment. Make sure that you play off of what the interviewer has to say or the meeting is going to end up awkward and in the favor of the other job seekers going for the position.

Interviewing is about concepts and communication, not memorization.

4. Lacking Industry Knowledge – The moment a job seeker shrugs his or her shoulders is the same minute they begin to lose the interviewer’s interest. Despite the broad possible you may have down, if you’re unable to answer the more specific industry related inquiries, you become a candidate who goes into the “maybe” pile only to get the offer if another candidate(s) who does know the industry passes on the position.

If you’re going to take the time to interview, you might as well take the time to research the industry.