Failed Interviews are More Useful for Your Career than Successful Ones

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Everyone goes through interviewing for new jobs once in a while.

If you are a consultant, you probably apply for new jobs once a year or more. As permanent employee, looking for a new job happens less, maybe every few years.

Not many people like the interviewing process. It is stressful every time as it elicits lots of emotions in the candidate. Like fear when he goes through interview after interview and no offer is made. Or inadequacy when realizing that the new positions require skills that he no longer has. Or anxiety about the future while waiting for a response.

There are 2 types of interviews, the successful ones and the failed.

Successful Interviews

The successful interviews are great. You get the job you applied for. Your interviewing process is done, the stress is gone, you may be happy as you get more money and are excited due to the change any new job brings (meeting new people, learning new things, working in a new environment).

For the short term, successful interviews are good.

But on the long term, they are not helping you much.

Why not? Because any successful interview does not make you learn anything new about yourself. If you get the job, the only thing that the interview did was to confirm what you already are. It confirms that you have some skills, some experience, and that both skills and experience match the job requirements. It also confirms that you behaved well in the interview and that you are still in sync with the job market.

None of these means that you learned something new about yourself.

So chances are that you will continue doing what you were doing and postpone making changes to later.

Failed Interviews

The failed interviews usually happen in larger numbers than the successful ones. For each successful interview, the candidate may have to go through multiple unsuccessful ones.

They do not conclude with a job offer, obviously.

The interviewing stress is still high after.