Let me set the stage for you.  I’m in my second year of grad school.  After changing my mind about “What to do with my life” twenty-five times before deciding to get my master’s in education (AND subsequently changing my mind at least three times after enrolling in my program) I have FINALLY decided that I want to be a career counselor.  So here I am, about to graduate and I’ve landed a phone interview with Wake Forest University for a…you guessed it…position as a career counselor.  I am beside myself with happiness because this is my dream job, in my dream location, life was good.

The day of the interview finally arrives.  The director of the WAKE FOREST Career Services office calls me, I complete the interview, and the next day I call her to apologize for wasting her time.  I BOMBED this interview.  Like so bad.  Like the New York Yankees losing to the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS in 2044 bad. Worse than anything I’ve ever failed at in my entire life bad.  I was interviewing to be a career counselor – to teach students how to interview effectively – and I couldn’t even do it myself.  That’s an extra bad look.

Once the dust settled, the wine was consumed, and the tissue box was empty, I had time to reflect on this dumpster fire of a performance.  To prevent you from making the same mistakes I did, here is a summary of a few things I did right and even more things I did wrong…very, very wrong.

What went right?

In my opinion, I did two things right.  First, my resume was a homerun.  I applied for that job and got the call back for the interview withing two weeks.  On paper, I looked amazing.  In real-time, not so much.

Second, I applied for a job that I was extremely qualified for and passionate about.  That’s always a good move.  I knew I could do this job, and do it really well. I just didn’t know how to answer the direct questions the director was asking me because she was asking me things I never thought about before.  Which leads me to all the things I did wrong.

What went (epically) wrong

There are at least three major things I did wrong when preparing for this interview (or should I say not preparing for this interview).  I’m limiting this list to four because I don’t want this blog to be too long.

First, I didn’t prepare.  I didn’t do my research on the Wake Forest career office or the position I applied for.  I didn’t know their mission statement, I didn’t use the job description to help me anticipate questions, and I didn’t think about success stories that I wanted to share.

Second, when answering the questions I felt confident answering, I didn’t use the STAR strategy to explain my achievements and value.  The STAR strategy involves explaining the Situation in which your answer to the question took place.  The Tasks you were assigned.  The Actions you took to complete the task, and the Results of your work.  When asked a behavioral interview question such as, “Tell me about a time you helped a student,”  I eloquently said something like, “I helped someone last week improve their resume.”  What I should have said was, “Just last week I helped a student who was a Senior in our nursing program.  She didn’t have a resume and needed one to apply for a nursing position by the end of the week.  I told her not to panic.  We had a conversation about her clinical experience, nurse externship, and leadership involvement on campus.  From there I taught her how to format her resume and compose achievement-based statements.”  The student took some time to create her resume and came back to see me the next day to put final touches on the document.  She submitted it that day and I’m happy to say two weeks later she emailed me to let me know she got an interview.”  That would have gotten me a second interview, not the generalities that I actually said.

Lastly, the reason I decided I wanted to become a career coach was because in grad school I needed money (like everyone else) and I got the only one available – a part-time job in my university’s career office.  I fell in love with the profession almost immediately.  I was working among industry experts every single day and I didn’t think to ask one of them for advice.  I didn’t ask someone to do a mock interview with me.  I didn’t ask anyone about what kinds of questions I would be asked during the interview.  I TOLD MY STUDENTS TO DO THIS ALL THE TIME and my co-workers loved me. They would have happily helped me as much as they could.  But did I lean on the resources/network? Nope!  I thought, “I got this.  I do this for a living” so I flew solo, and I paid the consequences.  No matter how confident you are about your next interview it is always a good idea to prepare, do your research, practice, and lean on your network whenever possible.

Hopefully this story gave you a few laughs and (more importantly) a few ideas about how to effectively prepare for an interview.  Please learn from my mistakes and don’t bomb your dream job interview.

If you would like to work with a career coach to help you with interviewing, I’d love to hear from you!  Click here to schedule a consultation.  You can also feel free to check out my Find Your Next Job Course for more interview tips.  If you enjoyed this post, scroll down to subscribe and my blog will be sent straight to your inbox 😊!