Job search strategy: Interviewing

Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.

After each interview you go home and wait for the “next step.”  Eventually you achieve your goal of getting an offer and get busy getting acclimated to your new job, and never give the interview a second thought.

But more often than not, you either don’t hear back from the interviewer or you receive a short “your qualifications are outstanding but no thanks” response and feel as though you are starting all over again.  Here is a critical issue — more than likely it is not your fault. You will not help yourself by examining your answers, your gestures, your demeanor, over and over again. You will just torment yourself.

Try to get the interviewer to tell you why you were not selected for the job.  If they do, they have given you a wonderful gift that will help you in preparation for the next interview.  But generally they will not tell you this and you are left to surmise on your own.

Don’t over analyze the interview experience.  Take some time to review the meeting.  Think about your answers and see where you can improve on what was said.  Do this promptly after the interview while the meeting is clear in your mind.  It helps to write down any unexpected questions and formulate a good answer for future interviews.  Decide what, if anything, you need to improve and then work on that and you are done.  Dwelling on what you might think was the deal breaker in the interview will not help you.  It will just lower your confidence, so why agonize over it.

Shortly after being admitted to the Illinois bar I applied to an ad for a Spanish-speaking associate that a colleague pointed out to me in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.  I met with the hiring partner and after some pleasant conversation about law school, and life in general, he offered me the job on the spot.  I had seen several other people in the outer office waiting to be interviewed, so I was surprised at being offered the job that quickly.

It turned out to be a very busy practice, with a large number of cases in a variety of areas of law.  I was immediately immersed in it and got to know the clients very quickly, received many referrals and only left when I had to move out of state.  A couple of months after I was hired, I asked the partner what it was about me that made him offer me the job so quickly.  He responded that if someone could go to law school full time, work full time and take care of a family, they could handle the very busy caseload in his office and relate well to the clients.

So you see, who would have guessed — the pace, workload and intense client contact of the position was never mentioned in the ad or the interview. This attorney wanted an independent associate who could work quickly and maintain excellent client relations. Had I not asked I never would have known why I was hired.

There are so many factors involved in picking a person for a job that trying to guess why you were not made an offer is most often fruitless. So, go do something more productive and get over it!