The Biggest Mistake I Made in a Job Interview

We all have those moments during interviews where we think: “This is going so well, I’m so sure I’ll get the job.” These were my thoughts during an interview for an internship at Goldman Sachs. I was in my penultimate year at university and had applied for the role through SEO Africa, a non-profit organisation that trains and provides university students with opportunities to work in leading local and international companies. I was ecstatic that I had reached the third and final round of the interview. The job offer was so close, I could almost taste it. My interviewer was a friendly man, middle-aged and professional-looking with a stubble beard. The interview was drawing to an end, so he asked me if I had any questions. Of course I did. He had previously mentioned that he was a former employee at Goldman Sachs, so I asked about his experience working with them. His eyes lit up as he began an eternal monologue about his time there. It was a relief to sit back as someone else answered questions for a change. I smiled, maintained eye contact, and probably even did the triple nod, a technique I would later learn after some gruesome networking sessions. I do not like networking as you will learn here: And these are the rules of the game medium.com Anyway, my interviewer had finished answering my question and I thought to myself: After talking for that long, he surely doesn’t have any more questions to ask me. I was mentally ready to hop out of the chair and exchange farewells when he asked me: “Do you have any other questions?” Did I? After spending days and weeks preparing for this interview, I surely had another question to ask. I scanned my memory for any other questions I had prepared. It came up empty. I froze. I hadn’t rehearsed this. Seconds passed, and I still couldn’t think of anything to ask. “I don’t have any other questions.” I finally said. “You sure?” The interviewer seemed disappointed. I nodded. Of a thousand questions I could ask, I couldn’t think of a single one. “Yes, I’m sure.” The rest was a blur. But my interviewer’s final words didn’t matter, because I already knew my fate: I had failed the interview. Some weeks later, I received a rejection letter. Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, I knew that my “lack of interest” to continue the conversation with my interviewer was probably the reason I didn’t get the job. I describe it as a lack of interest because that’s the impression an interviewer gets when a candidate isn’t engaged in an interview. In my case, I was so eager to leave the interview because I thought it had come to an end. I disengaged from the conversation and was unable to ask any follow-up questions. Looking back, I realise I was too busy focusing on the technical side of the interview and neglected the behavioural side. Now, you might say that maybe I wasn’t successful at the interview for another reason entirely, and that might be true. Maybe I didn’t answer the technical questions as well as I thought. The truth is, I’ll never know. But what I do know is what I could have done better. Now, as an HR professional, I advise candidates to prepare 3–5 questions to ask their interviewer. The more, the better. That way, if some of your questions were already discussed during the interview, you’ll still have more at your disposal. Interviewers see a lot of candidates. One of the best ways you can stand out is by asking questions that show your inquisitiveness. It was painful getting a rejection letter, but I didn’t give up. The next year, I reapplied to Goldman Sachs. I got rejected again. *Tears* But, thankfully, I had also applied for an internship with Bank of America, and I got the job. One piece of feedback I got from my interviewers was that I asked thoughtful questions and they felt I was a person who was willing to learn. Must have learned this from the sting of rejection, haha. Moral of the story: Be engaging and prepare backup questions for your interviews.