How to Flub a Job Interview

The vice president and deputy general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel is surprised at the ways job applicants manage to flub their interviews.

"I am often amazed at what people will tell me in an interview. It defies common sense," the ACC’s Deborah House wrote in an article for the ACC Docket that was summarized by the Fulton County Daily Report.

"Do not disclose confidential information about former or existing employers or badmouth them. When you do that, it tells the interviewer that the company's secrets aren't safe with you, and that they may be your next topic of conversation. It also tells me that you lack judgment."

House also says she has weeded out applications that have typos or are improperly addressed. “If an applicant can't get it right now, then I assume his or her work will be equally unreliable," she says.

Applicants who don’t list all the information requested in a job ad—including pay requirements—are also in trouble with House. “As an interviewer, if you don't follow my directions now, I have to ask myself whether I can depend on you to follow them later," she says.

House also says job hunters should rehearse answers for likely difficult interview questions, including this one: "What are you not good at, or what do you not like to do?" The wrong answer, she says, is to respond that you like everything.