13 Surest Ways to Blow Up an Interview Process

Most people go on interviews with good intentions.  They go with the goal of getting the job, or at least getting an offer.In many cases you would not be able to tell that this is the goal.  In many cases, people seem determined to douse the opportunity with gasoline and throw lit matches at it.  If this is your goal, here are the 13 surest ways to blow up the process:

1. Send your resume directly to the company and then have one or two search firms send it also.  Tell the HR team that you just sent it to so many places that you couldn’t keep track; or you weren’t sure it was the same job; or best yet, that you just weren’t sure how these things work.
2. On your initial phone screen ask about the details of the compensation and benefits plan – because you don’t want to waste anyone’s time.
3. On your initial phone screen ask if the job can be done remotely because you have a stellar home office setup and you are super productive working from home.
4. Interview your interviewer.  Get all of the details about them and the job out on the table.  Ask THEM behavioral interview questions:  “Tell me about a time when you had an employee that was really awesome at their job and how you helped to foster that person’s career growth.”
5. Talk about how incompetent your current or previous employers are.
6. Reschedule your interviews at least three times.
7. Rather than researching the company and their products/services, use up your interview time investigating their offerings.
8. Insist that you are an expert at things and refuse to give details.  Speak authoritatively, but only at a very high level.
9. Talk to the HR person like they are an idiot or a child.
10. Tell your life story.  Give all the gory details.
11. Tell them that you have to make a decision on a ridiculously fast timetable because you have a bunch of other offers pending.  Ask if they can accommodate your schedule.
12. Ask about other jobs at the company.
13. Talk in detail about all of your fantastic professional accomplishments that have little or nothing to do with the role that you are interviewing for.

In general, if you want to be sure not to get a job, behave in such a way that nobody in their right mind would want to work with you every day.  Be self-impressed, self- obsessed and myopic.  Make it the YOU show and make sure you make it clear that life is always the YOU show.