10 Things You Should Avoid Revealing In A Job Interview - Interview Tips
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Brian from Life After Layoff advises job seekers on what not to reveal during interviews. He warns against sharing too much personal information, discussing the real reasons for leaving a job, disclosing career plans that conflict with the position, showing desperation for employment, indicating age or nearing retirement, revealing major medical issues, discussing political beliefs, and sharing previous salary details. The goal is to avoid biases and increase the chances of a successful interview.
Takeaways
- π£οΈ Avoid revealing too many personal facts during an interview to prevent oversharing and maintain professionalism.
- π€ Be cautious about sharing the real reason for leaving your current job to avoid negative perceptions.
- π« Do not disclose your exact career plans if they conflict with the job you're applying for to prevent appearing uncommitted.
- πββοΈ Do not convey desperation for a job, as it can be off-putting to potential employers.
- π Be mindful of revealing your age or implying how many years you plan to work, as it can lead to age discrimination.
- π€ Keep your major medical issues private unless they directly affect your ability to perform the job duties.
- π ββοΈ Refrain from discussing political beliefs during interviews to prevent potential bias from arising.
- π° Do not reveal your previous salary to maintain negotiation power and avoid salary undervaluation.
- π Practice answering interview questions to appear more articulate and concise, which reflects well on your professional communication skills.
- π Tailor your responses to align with the job description and demonstrate how your skills match the role's requirements.
Q & A
What is the main focus of Brian's video?
-The main focus of Brian's video is to advise job seekers on what personal and professional information they should avoid revealing during job interviews to increase their chances of success.
Why should interviewees avoid sharing too many personal facts?
-Interviewees should avoid sharing too many personal facts because it can indicate nervousness or a lack of emotional intelligence, which may lead employers to question their ability to communicate effectively in a business setting.
What could be a potential bias that arises from sharing personal hobbies or interests during an interview?
-Sharing personal hobbies or interests could lead to biases if the interviewer does not share the same interests or dislikes them, which could negatively impact the candidate's chances of being hired.
Why should job seekers be cautious about revealing the real reason they are leaving their current job?
-Job seekers should be cautious because revealing negative reasons for leaving, such as disliking a boss or being treated poorly, might make them appear difficult to work with or unsatisfied in their role.
What is the advice given for discussing career plans during an interview?
-The advice is to frame career plans in a way that shows commitment to the current career path and potential for growth within the role, without revealing intentions to start a business or switch careers in the near future.
How can desperation in finding a job affect an interviewee's chances?
-Desperation can make an interviewee appear overly eager, which might push the desired outcome further away, as employers tend to avoid candidates who seem desperate for a job.
Why is it important to be careful about revealing one's age during the job application process?
-Revealing one's age can lead to age discrimination, as employers might have biases against hiring someone who is either too young or too close to retirement age.
What is the recommended approach to discussing medical issues during a job interview?
-It is recommended to only discuss medical issues that would affect the ability to perform the job's basic requirements. Otherwise, such personal health information should be kept private to prevent potential biases.
Why should interviewees avoid discussing their political beliefs during an interview?
-Discussing political beliefs can introduce biases and opinions that may not align with the interviewer's or company's views, which could negatively impact the hiring decision.
What is the suggested strategy for handling questions about previous salary during an interview?
-The suggested strategy is to avoid revealing previous salary figures to prevent being locked into a lower salary offer. Instead, research market rates for the role and base salary expectations on that information.
What resources does Brian offer for job seekers who need more help with their job search?
-Brian offers a website called lifeafterlayoff.com with various resources, including training courses such as resume writing, job seeker boot camps, and LinkedIn training, as well as a new 48-hour interview crash course.
Outlines
π« Avoid Oversharing in Job Interviews
In this paragraph, Brian from Life After Layoff advises job seekers on common mistakes to avoid during interviews. He emphasizes not revealing too many personal facts, as it could indicate nervousness or a lack of emotional intelligence, both of which are undesirable traits. He also warns against being long-winded, as it may suggest an inability to communicate effectively in a business setting. Additionally, he cautions against sharing hobbies or interests that could be used to form biases, either positively or negatively, and advises keeping the conversation strictly job-related.
π ββοΈ Don't Disclose Negative Reasons for Leaving Your Job
Brian advises against revealing the true negative reasons for leaving a current job during an interview. He suggests that candidates should be careful about how they frame their reasons for leaving, as employers may judge them based on this information. For instance, if a candidate says they left because their boss was terrible, it might imply that they are difficult to work with. He also mentions that candidates should be wary of oversharing their career plans, as this could signal a lack of commitment to the role they are interviewing for. Instead, candidates should focus on showing passion for the job at hand.
π€ Keep Your Desperation and Age Hidden
In this section, Brian discusses the importance of not appearing desperate during a job interview. He explains that showing a sense of urgency to get a job can be off-putting to employers. He also touches on the sensitive topic of age discrimination, advising candidates to be careful about revealing their age, either directly or indirectly through outdated technologies or an old email address. Furthermore, he warns against indicating how many years one plans to work before retirement, as this information could influence an employer's decision-making process.
π₯ Do Not Discuss Major Medical Issues
Brian advises job candidates not to disclose major medical issues during an interview unless they would prevent them from fulfilling the job requirements. He explains that while employers have a right to know if a candidate can meet the basic requirements of the job, they should not be influenced by unrelated medical conditions. He also mentions that candidates should not disclose pregnancy or disabilities unless they require reasonable accommodation, as this information could inadvertently lead to bias.
π€ Avoid Discussing Political Beliefs
Brian cautions against discussing one's political beliefs during a job interview. He notes that the political spectrum is wide and opinionated, and sharing such views could lead to bias from the interviewer. It's best to avoid this topic altogether to prevent any potential negative impact on the hiring process.
π° Don't Reveal Your Previous Salary
In the final paragraph, Brian warns against revealing one's previous salary during the interview process. He explains that disclosing this information can anchor the employer's salary offer at that level, which might be lower than what the candidate deserves based on market value. He suggests that candidates should determine their worth based on their skills, experiences, and the market rate, rather than being locked into a salary based on past earnings.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘interview
π‘personal facts
π‘overly nervous
π‘long-winded
π‘emotional intelligence
π‘desperate
π‘age discrimination
π‘reasonable accommodation
π‘political beliefs
π‘salary expectations
π‘career plans
Highlights
Avoid revealing too many personal facts during interviews as it may indicate nervousness or lack of emotional intelligence.
Keep interview answers concise, ideally two to three minutes, to show the ability to articulate thoughts clearly.
Be cautious about sharing personal hobbies or interests that could be used as a basis for bias.
When discussing reasons for leaving a current employer, avoid negative comments that might reflect poorly on you.
Consider how you frame your career plans to show commitment to the role and potential for growth within the company.
Avoid indicating desperation in your job search as it may push employers away.
Be mindful of age-related information that could lead to discrimination.
Do not disclose your age or indicate how many years you plan to work, as it may create a bias against you.
Major medical issues should be disclosed only if they affect your ability to perform the job's basic requirements.
Avoid discussing your political beliefs as they may not align with the company's or interviewer's views.
Do not reveal your previous salary during the interview process to avoid locking yourself into a lower salary range.
The presenter offers a 48-hour interview crash course for those looking to improve their interview skills.
Private one-on-one coaching sessions are available for personalized job search assistance.
The importance of conveying passion for the work you're interviewing for is emphasized.
How to handle questions about disabilities in interviews is discussed, suggesting to focus on job requirements.
The presenter shares personal experiences from recruiting to provide practical advice.
The average tenure of a worker in today's job market is noted as approximately three years.
Transcripts
you landed a big interview
congratulations but now we need to hit
it out of the park and as you head into
the interview process I don't want you
to make these common interview mistakes
so in this video I'm going to share with
you some things that you might not want
to reveal in your interview
[Music]
hi everybody it's Brian from Life After
layoff today I want to talk to you a
little bit more about interviewing
specifically what you shouldn't reveal
if you're talking to a recruiter or a
hiring manager but before we get too far
into it if you're interested in more
career related content just like this
directly from a corporate recruiter make
sure you hit that subscribe button you
might also want to hit that notification
Bell so you don't miss any future
content obviously with my background in
recruiting I've interviewed a lot of
people and I've had some pretty
interesting interactions over the years
there's some common things that I've
heard job interviewers reveal in
interviews that's probably not in their
best interest so I decided to put
together this list of things that you
shouldn't reveal to your interviewer
even though they might seem relatively
innocent at the surface because after
all interviewing can feel a bit like
navigating a Minefield one wrong step
can end you up in the no pile and we
certainly want to avoid that so I'm
going to give you a list of things that
you should avoid revealing and hopefully
you're not making too many of these
mistakes right now first thing that you
should avoid revealing is too many
personal facts about yourself this is
often a symptom of somebody who is
overly nervous in their interviews or
somebody who's just flat out long-winded
and neither one of those are really good
traits to have if you're going to try to
impress the interview team to convince
them that you're the right fit for the
job and if you've ever dealt
professionally with somebody who's a
long-winded person you know how
difficult that can be to deal with the
issue isn't so much of their unfriendly
but they either overshare or they lack
emotional intelligence and the reason
why this one's an issue is because
employers will link your ability to
articulate yourself to how you would
perform in a business setting or in a
business meeting so if you're somebody
that is in sales for example and you're
sitting in front of a client and you're
going on and on and on and you see a
glazed look in their face you're
probably not going to seal the deal so
they'll absolutely use that as an
indicator that you can convey your
thoughts and your messages in a clear
and concise way so if you're somebody
that tends to be a little long-winded
hopefully somebody's been nice enough to
you in your career to pull you aside and
say hey you need to wrap it up a little
quicker but generally speaking two to
three minutes in your interview answers
and that's all conversely if you're over
sharing because you're nervous it sounds
like you need to practice a little bit
more another possible danger and could
be a benefit too I guess of over sharing
too much personal information is the
person who is receiving that information
is going to potentially use that as a
bias for or against you so if you shared
some hobby that you were really
interested in but the person who you're
sharing it with didn't appreciate the
hobby you might end up losing them or
worse they might actually start judging
you for it but there's also the chance
that you could share something that
they're really interested in and you can
have an icebreaker of some sort but in
general I would avoid sharing anything
that's particularly personal just keep
it strictly related to the job at hand
the next thing I would avoid revealing
in your job interview is the real reason
why you're leaving your current employer
before you jump to conclusions I'm not
suggesting that you should lie about why
you're leaving but you might not want to
share the entire truth especially if
you're trying to escape a very boring
employer or you had a boss that you
didn't like or the company treated you
poorly or whatever reason you might have
well think long and hard about how you
want to message and package that up
because inevitably an employer is
probably going to judge based on that so
if you come in and say my boss was
terrible I didn't like working for them
there was nothing good about them we
butted heads and I needed to get out
an employer might hear you're difficult
to work with you potentially could be a
problem for us as well too much of a red
flag and we're going to avoid it
similarly if you're feeling very bored
and you share that the job didn't
challenge you very much employer might
say we're a little disappointed by that
because if you were truly a go-getter he
would go out and find more interesting
work to do to enrich the job that you
had and as a recruiter who's hired
thousands of people and had lots of
hiring managers give me feedback that is
some of the stuff that I have actually
heard so my advice to you on this one is
to figure out why it is that you're
really truly leaving and figure out a
way to articulate that in a way that
doesn't come across as threatening to an
employer and taking a step further I've
had people overshare their career plans
with me and actually comes back to
really bite them because inevitably
you're probably going to be asked what
is your career plans maybe where do you
see yourself in five years some
variation of that type of question and
what we're looking for is do you have
commitment to this type of career path
is it something that interests you long
term do you have the ability to grow in
this role potentially get promoted et
cetera we kind of want to know what we
have with the candidate and when you
come in and you say well my Five-Year
Plan is to start a business or if you
say I'm switching careers after five
years I'm going to be somewhere
completely different it's generally not
going to be looked at very positively at
all in fact that could be a deal breaker
for a lot of employers because when
you're interviewing for a certain job
type and you're saying you want to start
a business that's completely unrelated
basically what that's telling the
employer is you're not passionate about
the type of work that you're
interviewing for the name of the game is
we have to show or convey a level of
passion for what we're doing if you want
an employer or in particular a hiring
manager to feel good about your
candidacy so if you do have plans to
start a business or make a career shift
on some level I would certainly
encourage you to do so but just make
sure you have an idea of how you want to
message that in your interviews itself
I'd also avoid revealing the fact that
you're interviewing because you're
desperate this may be because you got
laid off or fired or whatever the reason
might be but you have a sense of urgency
to get back into the workplace as
quickly as you can to start collecting a
paycheck because inevitably what an
employer is going to hear is that you're
desperate and it's kind of like the
dating world where if somebody has a
high sense of urgency for a particular
outcome they usually end up pushing that
outcome further away from them because
nobody wants to be somebody's desperate
play or something like that and I can
understand it can be difficult if you're
somebody that's in a situation like that
where you're going to lose your house
your your lights are being shut off and
you need to get a paycheck somehow you
need to reach down deep and convey that
you're calm and collected and that
you're a cool Customer because you don't
want to be put into the no bucket
because you're overly eager and sharing
that you're desperate for work the next
thing we don't want to share and this
could be inadvertent through a resume
that's not carefully written as well is
your age this could be both sides if
you're too young too old both of those
have been subject to age discrimination
and unfortunately it does happen I made
another video on ageism if you're
interested I'll try to leave a link
somewhere or you can type in my channel
just search for ageism and you should be
able to find it pretty easily and be
careful with certain Technologies or
even your email address could indicate
how old you are I actually had a resume
once this is a few years ago now but
even at the time it was still pretty
shocking that actually put a fax number
on their their resume and it was like
who even has that so that clearly
indicated to me that the person was a
little
out of place in the job market and it
was a little bit more difficult for them
so my recommendation would be to mind
your email addresses mine the dates that
are on your resume and certainly don't
offer how old you are when you sit down
for the interview taking that one a step
further we also don't want to indicate
how many years we have left in the
workforce and this one is really common
especially with folks who are in the
last five to seven years of their career
they'll tell me things like I just want
to land this last job the last stop of
my career put in 10 good years and right
off into the sunset and then what that
becomes to me is okay now you're 55 and
I don't even want to think of that stuff
when I'm interviewing somebody because
now if I think about it it becomes a
liability and I shouldn't know any of
that stuff about you as a recruiter as
you get into the hiring manager phase
you certainly don't want to talk about
that because if the hiring manager has a
plan for this role to grow and I have my
own opinion on this whole thing of
hiring people for growth opportunities
considering the average tenure of a
worker in today's job market is like
three years or something so they
shouldn't be making decisions based on
somebody's long-term plans but
nonetheless they they do you don't want
to Clue Into the hiring manager that you
only have plans to work for three to
five years when in the hiring manager's
mind they want to find somebody that's
going to have 10 plus because inevitably
it's going to create a bias against you
and it's not going to be easy to prove
it but one day you're going to get a
rejection letter and you're going to
wonder what happened the next major
thing that I would avoid revealing in an
interview is that you have major medical
issues of course if you have major
medical issues that would prohibit you
from meeting the basic requirements of
the position the employer is gonna have
the right to know that you won't be able
to do the job but they should be asking
you in the application process are you
able to meet the requirements of this
position as set forth in the job
description and you should be answering
truthfully
and at the recruiter stage they may ask
you that question as well and at that
point you should be truthful if you're
asked the question came up that they're
somebody who's pregnant and was
interviewing through the position and
the employer the hiring manager said I
don't want to hire this person because
they're pregnant and they're going to be
needing all this time off and there's
actually laws against that you can't not
hire a person because they're pregnant
and they don't even have to disclose it
same thing goes for Disabilities if
you're somebody that has a disability
that wouldn't interfere with your
ability to perform the job I would
certainly not recommend that you even
bring it up as an issue because again if
we require a reasonable accommodation we
should be indicating that in the
application and if we're asked by the
recruiter but say for example if you're
somebody that's high functioning
autistic and you want the employer or
the hiring manager to know that dynamic
because it might impact your ability to
do the job or you want a reasonable
accommodation at the time of offers when
you would bring that up I would not
bring it up during the actual interview
because you don't want them to have a
bias that they form against you
inadvertently because after what we went
hired for our ability to perform the job
based on the requirements of the
position based on the job description
and that's why job descriptions are
written so carefully is because they try
to check all those boxes because that's
the litmus test does the person match up
to the job description close enough to
be able to perform the job with or
without reasonable accommodation so just
keep that in mind the next major faux
pas and one I definitely wouldn't reveal
is your political belief system as much
as it may be tempting and is aligned as
you think you are to a company's Mission
or potentially a hiring manager's
viewpoints
be very careful what you share here
because obviously the political spectrum
is very wide it's very heated very
opinionated and it's better just to stay
completely out of it because you never
know what the belief system is of the
hiring manager you're interviewing for
even if they work for a company that
might align with your core values and
the final thing I want to cover in
today's video and this is one that
happens very commonly and I certainly
wouldn't recommend that you do it is to
reveal your previous salary because when
the salary question does come up and
it'll usually come up during the
recruiter phone screen if you disclose
what your previous salary is then you're
locking yourself into that it's a high
salary and you've properly valued
yourself in your career it might be
advantageous for you but in most cases
you're probably going to walk yourself
into a lower salary than you probably
should especially if you're somebody
that was way underpaid based on the rest
of the market it's really annoying to
even have to say this but it happens
enough that I do have to say it
you don't want an employer to determine
your value you as the employee need to
be determining your worth based on what
you know the open market suggests for
your particular set of skills
experiences knowledge and abilities if
you need more guidance on how to answer
the salary question check out my video
on salary expectations it'll give you a
lot more information about how you
should approach that question so this
list came from a lot of years of
interviewing hopefully find some value
in it hopefully there's a few in there
that you were questioning I know I've
gotten a lot of questions about
disabilities in particular in my
comments but I wanted to clarify some of
those for you and give you a little bit
more insight on how to approach them
these more delicate situations but
hopefully this was helpful for you and
if you're somebody that needs a little
bit more help with your job search that
is actually something that I specialize
in I have a website called
lifeafterlayoff.com it's loaded with
tips and tricks all from an Insider's
perspective and I do share my deepest
and most intimate knowledge in the form
of some training courses I've talked
about resume and Rockefeller before I've
talked about the ultimate job Seeker
boot camp before and I've talked about
the unlocking LinkedIn courses which are
all really great and they will help
supercharge your career and I'm thrilled
to announce that I just launched a new
course as I create this video that's
called the 48 hour interview crash
course and it's designed as a perfect
companion for the ultimate job Seeker
boot camp it's designed for the person
who has an interview coming up and you
just want really targeted information on
how to navigate through a major
corporation's interview processes how to
prepare for and how to make sure that
you're delivering the right answers that
are going to give you the best chance of
moving to the next round of the
interview so I'll leave a link for it in
my bio you can check it out it's on my
website as well really excited about the
course I think you'll find a lot of
value if you're somebody that gets
nervous wants to just have your best
foot forward for that big interview
that's coming up so check that one out
if you're somebody that needs a little
bit more personalized help I do offer
some limited private one-on-one coaching
sessions you can reach me through my
website to schedule those as well
there's all the information that you'll
need hey happy job hunting hopefully
this list is a little bit helpful for
you as you navigate through these
uncertain Waters of major corporations
hiring processes like always I'm here to
help see you on the next one
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