That's why they don't hire you: 10 failed interview mistakes

Have you already sent dozens of resumes to different companies, but haven’t even received a call in response?

After countless interviews, they promise to call you back, but never do?

In this article, we will explain why this happens and what you need to do to get the long-awaited position. And for this we will have to radically reconsider the approach to searches.

“Every unsuccessful attempt is another step forward” (Thomas Edison, inventor).

Before introducing and changing the world with his famous inventions, Thomas Edison suffered many failures. The result was worth all the effort.

Despite the fact that Edison has achieved tremendous success and is one of those people you can look up to, you should not take his statements too literally.

Quotes like this are appropriate on motivational posters.

, and taking them literally and applying them in practice is not a good idea.

If you repeat the same mistake and experience failure over and over again, you will gain nothing but wasted time and motivation.

What are you doing wrong?

Mistake 1. You are late

A sure way to turn an HR manager against you even before the interview begins is to be late for the meeting. Few people are willing to work with someone who doesn’t know how to manage their time. Such unpunctuality can be perceived as disrespect. Or, even worse, as a sign that you don’t really need a job.

What to do

This can be considered the first test. And if punctuality is not your strong point, take time to prepare for the meeting.

• Having trouble finding your way around an unfamiliar area? Calculate your route on online maps and leave with time to spare.
• Are you at risk of getting stuck in traffic? Leave your car and go to your meeting by public transport.
• Are you still late? Call a company representative and warn them - this will smooth out the impression a little.

There is a good way to avoid getting lost on the way to an interview and then being late for work. You just need to find a vacancy near your home or a convenient metro station if you live in a city with a population of one million. The Avito Work service offers a search using the “Radius/Metro” function. You can select the desired station or point on the map, and then set the search radius for vacancies - from 1 to 100 kilometers. The service will display suitable advertisements, and you will no longer have to manually filter out vacancies on the other side of the city.

Your qualifications are excessive

If you are fluent in several languages, have an MBA and experience working in international corporations, applying for a position as a supermarket salesperson is quite strange, isn't it?

Of course, this example is exaggerated, but often it is the candidate’s excessive qualifications and too much experience that become the reason for refusals.

Reasons why employers do not want to hire a person with excess qualifications:

• Such people have inflated salary demands.
• Most likely, the candidate will not stay in this position for long and will leave as soon as he finds a position that matches his experience.
• Such an employee is much more difficult to manage - he knows his worth and will not allow himself to be manipulated.

The position for which you apply must match your abilities. In this case, you will quickly fit into your work schedule, and a promotion will not take long to arrive.

Are you already settled, but are you annoyed by work? We know what to do, read: I hate my job and my boss

Mistake 2. You dressed incorrectly

Or rather, they didn’t pay attention to how you look.
Appearance is the first thing a person pays attention to when meeting you. Especially if this is an HR manager. It is believed that we only need 17 seconds to form a first impression of our interlocutor. You may be an excellent specialist, but a recruiter who is outraged by your dirty shoes and stale shirt will never know about it and is unlikely to regret it. It is also important how it is customary to go to work where you hope to get a job. Not all candidates, when attending an interview at a company with a dress code, dress appropriately. But for many recruiters this is important: if the applicant is not concerned with his appearance, either he is not motivated, or he is even too lazy to find out about the dress code.

What to do

When going to an interview, sacrifice jeans for a while and choose business-style clothes. Tidy yourself up to look neat and well-groomed. Do not use perfume, preferring a deodorant with a neutral scent.

What to do if, in principle, any rules regarding appearance in the office do not suit you? Look for remote work that you can do even in your pajamas. There are many such offers on Avito Work. Simply use the desired filter to select the parameters for your ideal job.

Who should not be refused

If none of the above reasons are voiced, the refusal may be considered discriminatory and even challenged in court.

INFORMATION! If the court turns out to be on the side of the unfairly unemployed, the manager may face a fine of 30-50 thousand rubles, suspension of the enterprise’s activities for up to 3 months, and in cases of pregnant women and mothers, criminal liability.

Reasons for refusals that are illegal, which employers sometimes resort to, are listed below.

1. Any characteristics not related to professionalism: skin color, nationality, political leanings, adherence to religion, etc.
2. Lack of registration at the place of residence or place of work.
3. Membership or lack thereof in a trade union organization.
4. HIV-infected status.

Unconditional candidates

It is unlawful to refuse to hire certain categories of candidates:

• pregnant women and mothers;
• disabled people allocated to a position based on a quota;
• passed the competition;
• for those who are employed by transfer (within a month from the date of leaving their previous position).

In what cases is refusal to hire a person prohibited by law ?

Mistake 3. You don't focus on your resume

Although the HR manager will have your resume in front of him, you will still be asked to tell about yourself. If the applicant cannot do this and is confused about names and dates, this is a big minus. The question arises whether he wrote the truth there at all.

You're unlikely to be the only candidate the recruiter has spoken to in the last few days. HR may not remember the contents of your resume. But if you don’t remember him well, that’s strange.

What to do

Before the interview, review your resume and remember the main stages of your career. The legal names of the places where you worked are not as important as your functions and achievements there. And during the meeting, talking about your experience in each position, briefly list the information from your resume.

Mistake 4. You don't know anything about the company

A candidate who has not bothered to find out what a potential employer does is clearly a risk taker. It is not a fact that you will be asked what you know about the company. But if it turns out that you don’t know anything at all, then your choice was not conscious. Most likely, you are desperate for work and will grab any vacancy. And this is certainly not what employers want to hear.

What to do

Show your awareness, interest and ability to search for information. On Avito Work, you don’t even have to make much effort for this. The necessary data can be seen directly on the website. Click on the employer's name in the job description, go to their page and, if it is not an individual, you will see the “About the Company” section.

What to pay attention to when meeting a potential employer through an advertisement:

• Study the information about how many years the company has been in existence, what facts it indicates about itself. Please pay attention to contact information: office address, work phone numbers and e-mail. Serious companies use corporate email on their own domain.
• Carefully read the job description in the vacancy. It should be detailed, but not excessive. A competent employer is interested in ensuring that candidates have a clear idea of ​​what they will be doing.
• You can learn more about a company's culture by looking at the style of the ad. He can be reserved and formal or creative and friendly.

What to do to avoid problems with employment

To avoid having to solve a problem with employment due to lack of experience, you need to prevent its occurrence. Let's highlight some basic tips:

1. Choose the right profession for which you will study. Often similar problems arise for those who make the wrong choice of specialty: such people become disillusioned with their chosen industry and begin to look for work in professions for which they did not study. Therefore, think very seriously about where you will apply, and if you change your mind during the process, it is better to lose several years of study, but transfer immediately, rather than wait to receive an unnecessary diploma.
2. Diligence in studies. Getting a diploma “for show” is a common thing in our mentality. As a result, we get a whole army of people with diplomas, but without even theoretical knowledge of their profession. It turns out that the person wasted several years, skipping classes, giving bribes for sessions, and this will not give him any real benefit in the future.
3. Real educational practice. Another option: when practical training begins in the 2nd or 3rd year, a considerable part of the students get a job somewhere just to get a signature and submit a report. This practice does not provide any experience or knowledge. But this is a great opportunity to gain real experience (even if it’s free), which you can already write about in your resume.
4. Start your career as early as possible. Many young people begin looking for their first job after graduating from college - at the age of 21-22, or even later. And at the same time, they lack any experience at all: first there was school, then study. And it is precisely these young people who most often fall under the two points above - they don’t try very hard in their studies, and they just get through practice somehow. This is a serious mistake: after all, a person had the opportunity to start working part-time much earlier - already from the first years of college. Let it be a low-paid job or even a free specialized internship - but this would already be real experience.
5. Communication with people working in the desired field. Example: you want to get a job as a programmer and are learning a language. Try to look for people around you who are already working in the same specialty and communicate with them. They will be able to give you both practical advice (they will tell you what and how to do if you cannot understand something) and direct your learning in the right direction (they will tell you what to read).
6. Creating your own business (or working for yourself). If you don’t want to work for someone, you can try freelancing or start your own business. Even if you do not achieve material success, you will gain experience.
7. Self-education. Advice that will be relevant to everyone, regardless of who they are studying for and who they plan to work as: educate yourself. If you do not have a specialized education, this will give you the necessary foundation. If you are studying in a specialized specialty, this will expand the boundaries of your knowledge and make you a more in-demand specialist.
8. Work in a related industry. Example: you want to get a job as a chef, but you don’t yet have enough experience, knowledge, and recommendations. Get a job as an assistant cook, or go to a simpler establishment and work there for a while.
9. Patronage work. An option for those who have friends, relatives or acquaintances who can get a job in the desired specialty or in a company with the required profile. Of course, not everyone has this opportunity, but it’s still worth asking others about it.

List of tips for finding a job without experience (video)

Mistake 5. You are stumped by awkward questions

The Internet is full of stories about how HR professionals conduct real stress interviews. And a person who is not ready for an interview may be confused even by a standard request to tell about himself and simple questions:

• Why do you want to work for this company?
• For what reason did you leave your previous job?
• Why should they hire you?
• Where do you see yourself in five or more years?
• What salary are you applying for?

What to do

Prepare answers to these common questions, and look for tricky and unexpected ones on the Internet. Practice answering in front of a mirror or ask friends to play along with you. Record your answers on video: this way you can look at yourself from the outside, listen to whether your speech sounds confident, whether there are any filler words in it. Try not to be verbose.

Where to get a job without experience

Getting a job without experience is not difficult. You may not be able to find a job in your specialty right away. However, you can gain experience in another job, for example, get a job as a courier, cook, waiter, archivist, administrator, executive assistant, etc.

These positions do not require work experience or special education. Therefore, every second young person begins his career path with a vacancy from the “Starting a Career” section.

To find a suitable vacancy, it is best to use job search services. Search for the section you need and then set the search filter. Please indicate your suitable work schedule, income level and industry of interest.

Don't ask for a salary that is too high or too low. Set the average income in your region. Be sure to fill out your resume on the service and read the tips from the service department on how to fill out your resume correctly. If you want to earn a living, a car and an apartment, then you need to think about choosing a job.

For the first time while you are looking for a job, we recommend registering with the labor exchange. Your length of service will begin to grow, and you will also be able to receive unemployment benefits. You can register with the employment center only after graduating from university and receiving a diploma.

In addition, it will be interesting to come to a job fair, where you can find a suitable vacancy.

How to get a job without services? Through relatives and friends. Ask around to see if there is any available space at their business. Sometimes a vacancy does not have time to be posted on the Internet before a candidate is found to take its place. For example, if an employee is about to quit and is working the last 2 weeks or going on maternity leave.

Your friends or relatives can tell you in time that a search for the desired vacancy is being announced. However, this does not mean that you will be “imprisoned” at the workplace. You must seize the moment and approach the HR department on time. Leave your resume and phone number to be the first to be invited for an interview.

This way you can get a job without work experience.

Mistake 6. You are not very loyal

The ideal candidate talks about the past company either well or briefly and neutrally. This indicates that the applicant is not confrontational and will treat the employer correctly. If you are ready to tell in person what kind of bad people you had to work with before, this will not cause sympathy at all. Such criticism will say more about your character than about those you criticize.

What to do

When answering the question about the reasons for dismissal, do not discuss the personalities of the manager and colleagues. It’s better to talk about the lack of career growth, the inability to reveal your potential, and the distance from home.

Even if the working conditions at your last place were definitely terrible, which is why you quit, talk about it in neutral terms. For example, if overtime was not paid, and wages were consistently delayed, say so, without drawing parallels with slave labor.

Mistake 7. You are not confident in yourself

Being tense during an interview can ruin your chances, even if your skills and experience match the position. It is difficult for an insecure person to show himself as a successful candidate with whom the company can achieve good results. Interviews can be stressful. And how you react to this stressful situation can tell your employer a lot about you.

What to do

• Before you walk into a potential employer's office, remind yourself: it's not just the company that chooses, it's you, too.
• Start preparing for interviews and dealing with uncertainty at the stage of creating your resume. Indicate in it everything that you consider to be your strengths. Retraining courses and certificates from well-known online courses are also suitable if the completed programs are relevant to the position for which you are applying.

Making a resume in the Avito Job service is very simple, just like selling something - both directly on the website from your computer and in the mobile application. Only this time you will be “selling” yourself.

Log in to your account on the site and in the upper right corner click the “Submit an ad” button. In the menu that appears, select the “Job” section, and then “Resume”.

Select your area of ​​activity and fill out the online form that opens in as much detail as possible. If possible, add a photo - this will increase your chances of being noticed several times. By the way, you can upload a photo of your diploma, certificate, and other important documents.

And don't forget to fill out the "About Me" section. There is no need to talk about your hobbies and zodiac sign: this is unlikely to help you understand what kind of person you are at work. But if you are applying for a programmer position, you should provide a link to the repository and tell about hackathons where you managed to distinguish yourself.

Create a resume on Avito

The law protects, prohibits and obliges

Personnel formation is almost the only area of ​​labor law where the employer feels more or less free and protected in relation to employees, or rather, to those who just want to become them. The Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not say anything that the employer is obliged to immediately fill any vacancies that appear or formalize labor relations with certain specific persons.

However, the Constitution and the Labor Code of Russia proclaim the principle of freedom of labor, which guarantees citizens the opportunity to unlimitedly choose the type of activity and use their ability to work (Articles 3-7 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, Article 2 of the Labor Code). On March 17, 2004, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution on equal opportunities when registering labor relations. This right is duplicated in Art. 64 of the Labor Code, which directly prohibits discrimination in employment on any grounds other than professional ones and those specified in federal legislation.

REFERENCE! Provisions on discrimination in the world of work were regulated back in 1958 in Art. ILO Convention No. 111 and enshrined in Art. 19 of the Basic Law of the Russian Federation and Art. 3 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. When determining the professional and labor qualities of a candidate, employers are guided by the resolution of the Plenum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation dated March 17, 2004.

The latest legislative innovation is the norm of the labor law (Article 64 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation), obliging the employer to explain the reason for the refusal to the applicant for a vacant position and, at the request of the latter, provide the refusal in writing within a week.

What consequences can there be for an employer if an unreasonable refusal to hire a person is made ?

Mistake 8. You overpraise yourself

When trying to impress the interviewer, do not exaggerate the extent of your merits. A job seeker who picturesquely talks about his incredible achievements in his previous job raises the question: why is such a successful candidate looking for a job?

Quite often, applicants lie during interviews, trying to impress HR. Some people exaggerate their experience and skills, others underestimate their age. This is reputation-killing: many of the things you say about yourself can easily be verified with a couple of calls or a cursory glance at your social media.

What to do

Let the real facts speak for you. When talking about your successes at your previous place of work, mention that you owe this, among other things, to the company and the people with whom you worked - if you really think so. For an HR manager, this is a good signal: the applicant loves working in a team and is loyal to the employer.

Olga, 47 years old: “They didn’t even hire me for the position of a simple designer”

In May 2009, I was fired from my post as chief artist of a large publishing house. I was not loyal to the then management, who constantly delayed salaries. There was a crisis, so almost all the managers were fired from our publishing house.

I was 39 years old, my portfolio included approximately 2,000 book covers and extensive experience in magazine layout. My works were on the shelves in every bookstore in the country. Of course, I was sure that I would find a suitable job quickly. However, it turned out that my resume was greatly spoiled by age. It would seem, what is 39 years for a specialist with experience like mine? Moreover, I myself avoided vacancies for leadership positions: I always liked working on my own more than commanding someone. Moreover, given the crisis, I asked for a salary half as much as the one I left with. But in all the vacancies that I was at least somehow interested in, there was an age limit of 35-40 years, and the team was “young and energetic.”

I sent out a bunch of letters, but the response was silence or refusals. Someone wrote: “We have a young team, you won’t fit in.” I was desperate. I felt young, fast, open to new things, ready to make good, professional design, but it turned out to be unnecessary. I understood that young people can be paid less and are easier to manipulate. But shouldn’t my experience, my professionalism have outweighed my age? I wasn’t even hired as a regular designer. I went to the employment service, but even there they shrugged: “What do you want? You’re almost 40!”

A year later, I finally found a job as a layout designer at a publishing house that produced illustrated magazines. In my department, I turned out to be the oldest, and only I had a specialized education. I felt like an ancient fossil. Even my experience did not help, but rather prevented me from relaxing. I remained a stranger in that place. I managed to hold out for about a year, and then went freelance.

I'm very glad we left. In Austria, for example, people under 50 years of age are considered young, and salaries peak at this same age. The attitude of those around you is appropriate. Therefore, now, two years after my arrival, I again feel young, cheerful and open to new things.

Mistake 9. You are behaving strangely

Both stiffness and excessive swagger can leave a bad impression on your interlocutor. It is better not to take risks and not go beyond the polite boundaries of business communication.

Many applicants, wanting to establish contact with the interviewer, try to joke, and this is rarely appropriate. Some candidates, hoping for their own irresistibility, try to flirt and flirt with a recruiter of the opposite sex. And some even try to manipulate the manager conducting the interview using advice from a book on NLP.

What to do

Trite but effective advice: act naturally. Do not practice acting if you are not applying for a job in the theater: a professional will quickly see through your “tricks” and will not allow himself to be deceived.