This article shares an embarrassing story, but the goal is not to explain how to get out of that situation, but how to not get there in the first place. Consequently, it’s also about how I learned about the most powerful tool in a job interview: asking questions!
I’ve had several job interviews at offices during my undergrad years. Mainly mock interviews (with real HR managers), but I spoke to many of them and was always trying to get tips on updating my resume, making it stand out, and figuring out what tips and tricks I could use on a job interview. Coincidentally, my interest in body language even taught me a few tricks that could be applied to job seekers. In slight arrogance, I even thought to myself I was above average in job interviews.
And this point of view almost cost me my job opportunity, yet the lesson from it will stay with me forever.
In a hectic time of my life, I was unhappy with my first job out of college and I started seeking a new job elsewhere. Networking with school professors I found two opportunities from interesting mid-size companies. One of which yielded a job interview. For various reasons, I chose not to prepare myself… one of the reasons being my thought of being somewhat of a “seasoned” interviewee. I could wing this.
To my surprise the first person to interview me was the CEO of the company. We spent 15 minutes going over my resume (as the Marketing manager had done during a phone interview), when finally he asked the big question: “So what do you know about our company?”
In an attempt to cover up my lack of preparation, I just used many words to describe the few sentences that my school professor told me about the company. I explained how I knew it was a company that generated mobile applications for Latin American-based companies and that they were spread out across several companies in south America, including Brazil (trying to build him up to leverage my Portuguese)
He stared at me for what must’ve been 5 seconds with a glaze that reminded me of a deer staring at headlights right before an imminent crash. He was in total disbelief, and then dropped the bomb shell: “That is absolutely nothing related to what we do!”
Foot. In. Mouth. It dawned on me right then and there: I had described the OTHER company my professor had mentioned. Caught red handed with my tail in between my legs, I had absolutely no follow up. Quite honestly, I was in such disbelief myself that I don’t even fully remember what we spoke about next, but the conversation was obviously going nowhere very fast. Most people would’ve sent me home packing right then and there, but somehow I wasn’t. The CEO decided to have the CTO (and co-founder) ask me a few questions before letting me go. To this day I could only imagine it was a mere formality at this point.
So here I was, by myself in a conference room that sits a dozen people, waiting for the CTO. It might’ve been 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or maybe even 15. It felt like an hour. But in that “hour” of reflection I snapped and had my breakthrough: “If I have ANY chance left at this, I’m going to have to blow the CTO’s mind away”.
At that point, surely the CEO had given a “fair” description of my shortcoming. So I had to start from scratch, and very, VERY humble. And I told myself what will be forever the number one tip, suggestion, advice, or even commandment for a job interview: I am going to ask questions.
Even for a company of its size, the CTO was somewhat involved in the marketing activities. But when he came in I started asking questions. Firing away like a gattling cannon from an A-10 Thunderbolt, I started “So what’s the company’s marketing budget?”, “Have you invested at all in online marketing?”, “What about SEO, trade shows, etc?”, “Who had the position before me?”, “Who will I be reporting to?”, etc. Literally anything that would come to mind would be asked at a rate that was challenging the speed of sound.
In the end, I caught him off guard. He had no answers for some of my questions and was not fully aware of what I was asking, which counted as a bonus for me, and it paid off: after one more waiting round, the CEO came in and asked me to prepare a presentation for my 3rd round of interviews, to present within a week.
Guess what? I put my life on that presentation. I wasn’t about to slip up again. But even to this day, I’ll never forget that situation, and how important it was to ask questions. Concisely, research about the company before you go into an interview, and write down many questions. Trust me, they want to hear it. If you make it to a job interview, asking questions about the company and the position you’re applying for makes a profound difference.
It’s a bit of a long story, but I hope that it proves the argument of how powerful asking questions can be (besides hopefully entertaining you with one of those stories that proves that you are not only one that makes mistakes at job interviews). Will I always get the job in future interviews? It’s unlikely, but one thing is for certain: I am never letting my guard down again and I will tackle every job interview as if it’s the last bottle of water in the Sahara.