Don’t Let Past Injustices Taint Your Interview

I don’t know about you, but I am definitely one to hold a grudge about past injustices.

They still seem so raw when I think back on them, possibly because I spent so much emotional energy getting over them at the time. Although I realise that it is not healthy to dwell on them, my blood can’t help but start to bubble slightly whenever they come to mind.

I’m not sure if that is normal (probably not), but hey, no one is perfect.

Luckily, I am perfectly happy sitting at my desk writing away, so I don’t have to subject myself (or others) to the experience of reliving my career glories and horrors. There have been many of both, trust me.

Most interviewers are proficient at sensing where the weak spots lie. Just one careless word can betray a less-than-ideal career episode, and suddenly you are forced to relive it with a total stranger. You can’t possibly concisely explain the complexity of why things didn’t quite work out, so how do you handle those past moments of career anguish?

Should you lie? Should you brush over them and change the subject? Or should you leave the interviewer with a sense that although it wasn’t your finest hour, you got through it and learned from it?

Past injustices sting

My personal feeling is that an interview should be as upbeat as possible, with a few notes of imperfection sprinkled here and there for realism.

Dissecting past injustices and mistakes is never going to end well.

An interviewer will only remember a few things about each candidate after their interview, and they will likely remember those things that made them think. You make someone think by invoking emotional responses as you tell your story, but if your account is too focused on the “learning” moments in your career, they might feel you still have a lot to learn.

Be expansive on the positive stuff and succinct when it comes to the negatives.

But not to the point of insisting that you are perfect.

This is the tightrope of any interview. It is a bad idea to let your past injustices and failures dominate the narrative, but if you exclude them completely, your interviewer will think you have something to hide.

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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists. 

Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).