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Requesting Feedback After A Failed Interview
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Written by: Tracy P. Miller
Editor, Publisher
TearTaylor's Career Corner
Even when you wear your sharpest suit, fervently sell your talents as though your life depended on it, asked all the right questions and even sent a nice thank you letter to the interviewer just days after your interview, you can still occasionally find yourself without a job offer when the strenuous interviewing process is finally over. When this happens, don’t start mentally kicking yourself. Don’t start questioning whether you should’ve worn your blue suit instead of your gray one to the interview. Don’t curse yourself because you accidentally revealed that the real reason you completed your studies early during final-exams week was actually to get a head start on the different parties that were generously kicking off on campus. Instead, go straight to the source to find out where you went wrong. That’s if you really want to know. Most job applicants don’t. They simply whip out another copy of their resume and cover letter, send it off to the next company on their supposed hiring list and wait for the phone to either ring with good news or wait to receive another rejection letter in the mail.
But you might be the kind of jobseeker that really wants to know why you failed. If you do, don’t be apprehensive about contacting former interviewers. More and more these day’s job applicants are recontacting past interviewers to obtain valuable feedback concerning failed interviews. These candidates don’t want to risk making the same mistakes repeatedly. They want to increase their chances of pulling off a successful interview next time around and they believe that by obtaining constructive feedback this can be accomplished. Right now, there’s no standard recontact policy or general rule concerning post-interview etiquette. You must use your own discretion concerning whether to contact an interviewer again and how to go about doing so if you do decide to.
Phone Calls
If you choose to call a past interviewer, please keep in mind that you’ll occasionally invite the risk of receiving erroneous information. Since the interviewer hasn’t had an opportunity to sit down and properly review your file again and he might also be inundated with a hundred other more pressing matters at the office at the time of your call, he’ll probably just toss you any piece of information in order to get rid of you. It might even, unfortunately, be something he recalled about another candidate instead, which will do you no good in improving your interviewing skills or in helping you sell yourself better to the next interviewer you meet with. If you do decide to call a former interviewer, always make sure never to pressure them. Don’t request feedback right on the spot. Instead, tell him or her that you’d appreciate any feedback concerning your past interview within the next few weeks or whenever it’s convenient for them to respond, but again never pressure them.
Sending Letters
If you send a letter to solicit feedback, you’ll most assuredly increase your odds of acquiring valid feedback. Since the interviewer will have had plenty of time to mull over your request and will assuredly have had a chance to review your file again, he’ll be better able to provide you with detailed, candid insight concerning your past interviewing mistakes, but keep in mind that just because you put your request in writing doesn’t necessarily mean that the interviewer will agree to it. Not surprisingly, many interviewers feel extremely uncomfortable providing candidate feedback concerning failed interviews and frequently deny requests due to this discomfort. Also, letters don't create the same intimidating up-in-your-face environment that requests over the phone can immediately produce. Interviewers are frequently caught off guard by phone requests and reflexively fork up information simply because there was no convenient escape route at the time. Letters, on the other hand, can offer interviewers the convenient exit ramps they're sometimes looking for.
What To Do With Feedback
If you do somehow manage to obtain feedback from a former interviewer make sure to use it to your full advantage. Don’t just nod your head in agreement with whatever the interviewer tells you about your past interviewing mistakes and then just keep repeating them. But, instead, make changes and make them fast. Make sure to incorporate the interviewer’s suggestions into your next interviewing game plan. If he said you didn’t speak with enough confidence, then make sure to increase your voice a couple of octaves and start speaking with a lot more enthusiasm. If he said you didn’t sell your strengths enough during the meeting, then start elaborating on them more. If it helps you any, go ahead and create mock interviews for yourself. Have a friend or family member interview you so you’ll get use to selling your talents to others out loud. But, most importantly, make sure to seriously address the concerns or weaknesses that the interviewer pointed out to you so that you'll hopefully nail your next interview and also land the job.
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This article is © 2003-2005 by Tracy Miller and may not be reposted without written permission from the author and may not be reprinted for profit.