Are you frustrated that you aren’t getting the job, despite getting interviews? Even more frustrated that you don’t get any helpful or actionable feedback from those interviews? If you’ve been interviewing without success, and only getting generic feedback that the company has chosen to move forward with another candidate, this episode may help you learn how to get better feedback – and ultimately, strengthen yourself as a candidate.
In this episode of The Career Rx we’ll discuss:
- A different way of looking at the questions you are asked
- How to showcase your skills and address potential deficits directly
- Ways to follow up strategically, to get the feedback and the job
In this episode, you’ll learn about implementing these strategies to gain valuable insights into your strengths and weaknesses and increase your chances of securing your desired position.
Discover how to transform typical job interview feedback into actionable steps for career advancement.
In this Episode:
[0:45] If you’re interviewing, you ARE a strong candidate
[1:52] What you can learn about yourself from the questions you are asked
[4:13] Ask this highly instructive question before the interview ends!
[9:41] Hints you may not be communicating your strengths clearly
Links and Resources:
Industry Insider – 12 hours of CME, learn exactly how to land a rewarding nonclinical career without a new degree, special connections, prior experience, or a pay cut
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TRANSCRIPT: Episode 127 – How to Get Helpful Feedback From a Job Interview
Hey there, welcome back. Today we’re going to be talking about how to get real helpful feedback from the people who have interviewed you. So from a job interview, this question comes up quite a bit, especially in the context of when people do not successfully get a job.
If you manage to get yourself an interview, or even a screen, and you don’t get the job, the traditional feedback has always been to ask for feedback, right? Why ask why you didn’t get the job, this almost never works out.
And I think anybody who has experience with hiring or interviewing or HR will tell you, you know, if they’re giving you an honest point of view, that it’s very, it’s very difficult to give feedback from a liability point of view from the company.
So for them to really give you very constructive, detailed feedback about why it is that you didn’t get role really just opens up scrutiny into their process, even if they have a completely legitimate process, it can just be a very difficult thing to do. And so most won’t, to just sort of steer clear of the whole thing. To avoid missteps.
They just, they don’t have a process for giving you that feedback.
Or if they give you feedback, it’s extremely generic, like, they’ll tell you, you’re a very strong candidate, and we just went with someone who is more closely suited to the role.
And this perhaps is true, because frankly, if you are having an interview, you probably are a very strong candidate. And so that, but it’s not helpful, right, it doesn’t help for you to go forward and do better, or prepare in a different way.
I’m going to give you three tips for getting constructive feedback from the people who are interviewing you, that are going to be actionable, that you can apply not only to the job at hand, but also to future opportunities. So whether or not you get this job, you’ll have something in the bank.
Okay, the first strategy is to be just very aware of the questions that people are asking you and write them down after or during the interview. The reason that this is helpful is because you have already submitted a resume, presumably they’ve seen your resume or your CV.
And in some cases, they’ve already had a screening phone call, or they’ve gotten notes from somebody who has had a screening phone call with you.
When they ask you questions, it helps to paint a picture of what they either are unsure about. So they want to like get more detail about it, or what isn’t coming through very clearly from your resume, that’s important to them.
Now, you don’t have to go home and necessarily change everything. But it is useful to take note of it. Because if it becomes a theme, that’d be really important.
Or if there’s a future job opportunity in which that that skill set that this, you know that this feedback is focused on. If it’s really relevant, then you’ll have something that will be helpful to you already. And you can action it at that time.
So paying attention to the areas that they ask you to walk through areas where they ask you if you have experience. Make a note of that, and then go back and double check on your resume. Is that experience listed there?
Is it coming through in a way that is strong? If this is one of the skills, especially if this is one of the things that’s on the job description that they say is most important to them? Is it highlighted sufficiently?
If they’re asking about it, it’s likely they either want to know more, or they might have missed it all together. In which case, that’s important to know. Because you’re filling your interview time sort of reinforcing or adding to the pitch that they’ve essentially already seen. And so that might be constructive feedback that these are desirable skills.
These are the marketable skills. These are the prioritized skills and are they coming through in either your resume or in your interview?
Question answers, write your answers to the interview questions. So always take notes during that’s a totally normal thing to do take notes during the interview, and spend some time thinking about how the conversations went and what your answers were, and checking them against what you have submitted from your resume and what the job description asked for.
That’s good feedback. And it’s happening in real time.
All right, the second thing that you can do to get actionable feedback in real time and again, help yourself with the job offer at hand is at the end, when you have the opportunity to ask questions. We’ve had an episode at least one already on the show about questions to ask at the end of the job interview.
But one that you might ask is, Is there anything specific about my application? Or a knowing what you know, from this interview? Is there anything specific that raises any concerns for you, or that, you know, gives you any pause about my ability to be successful in this role? I mean, you can phrase it however you want to. I don’t want you to sound like a robot. It should sound like language that’s authentic to you.
But really what you’re saying is, okay, you’ve seen my resume, we’ve just had this conversation. You’ve gotten feedback from and potentially HR or other people in the panel, like now that you know everything that you’re going to know about me because we’re about to hang up, is there anything in the back of your mind where you’re thinking, I don’t think he or she can do this job, you want to get those cards out on the table?
And you want to just ask them to take a second, from everything that you’ve heard? Is there anything that gives you any pause about my candidacy? Or any doubts, in your confidence in my ability to succeed in this role? Give them a chance to answer that question. Because if they answer that question, they have just given you feedback.
Now, it might be feedback that you do have a gap, right? You are lacking a set of skills or competencies, or you have not come across in a way that’s inspired confidence in those things. And that that might just be true.
And that could be an opportunity for you to do some additional trainings and deeper learning, it may not rescue the job for you right there, it is very helpful. And it is much more constructive than you’re a strong candidate, but somebody else is more closely matched to the role. But also gives you the chance to answer in the moment.
So if you hear something, and it turns out that, hey, maybe you have not articulated this all that well, or it’s not really being, you know, highlighted or coming through in your resume or your answers, it gives you a chance to correct that, you can correct it in the moment and say, Actually, then let me let me tell you a little bit about that for myself.
And my experience in that area. Maybe now you realize, you know, maybe it wasn’t actually emphasized in their job description, but it is in their minds, the most important thing. So now you have a window, and you can react in real time.
And you can also make sure if you have a series of interviews, that you bring that forward into your next round of interviews, right, so that you are focused on that area that they’ve now told you they are focused on, and that they’re not sure you’re strong enough in so corrected in real time with the person you’re talking to.
And make sure to focus on it in the next rounds of interviews, really, really actionable feedback for sure.
And then the final thing that you can do is by way of follow up, and I would like to have some way of follow up because, you know, sometimes these interview processes can be long and drawn out. And there can be periods of silence during the hiring process. And you’re really left wondering what’s going on.
And people have a lot of uncertainty about the appropriate cadence for follow up, whether they should follow up and so forth. But you can always follow up after some period of time, you know, depending upon what they’ve communicated to you is the expected timeline right, the next steps and expect a timeline, you can follow up to say, you know, of course reaffirming your interests, etc. But also, is there anything else that I can provide that would help you with the decision making process?
So now, you know, they may it depends, of course, on how thoughtfully they’re going to respond, they might just say, No, we’re good. Thanks.
But if they do reply back that, you know, yes, actually, they would like to see a writing sample or they would like to see your bibliography of publications or, you know, whatever the case might be, there have definitely been examples that I’m aware of where people have the hiring manager has met multiple candidates and certain strengths have come out of subsequent candidates, you know, candidates they interviewed after the earlier candidates.
And in order to sort of level the playing field or go back and find out if the early candidates could really perform in the same way they’ve gone back and asked either for, you know, live presentation or for them to engage in some kind of real time problem solving or case study, or to provide a writing sample of publications or presentations and things like that. So, again, without that, it depends on you know, how responsive they are to your question.
But this is a way in which you can ask questions of the people who are in the hiring process, before the decision is made. And I think that’s key, because that’s when they are most engaged and invested in you. Right, they’re still they’re still having a back and forth with you. So they may be able to, you know, tell you that they’re all set, which is fine. It’s not especially actionable, but it’s good.
Or they might be able to tell you that yeah, they would like to know a little bit more about some area and whether they want to talk to you again, or they want you to send on something over, it can be a little window into how they’re thinking about the skills that they need in order to land the right fit for this role.
And then that can help you again, go back and assess is is that reflected in your resume? Is it reflected in your interview answers?
You know, are you doing a really good job already of communicating that and listen, I get it, you know, people are trying to strike the right balance between having a brief and clear resume, right, that gets the key points across.
And so you can’t take all of this feedback if you’re getting it you know, from multiple people or all the time and put it back into the same document and right One single document. So not everything requires your action. Some of it might require you to put it in a master file or sort of, you know, some people maintain what I’ll refer to here affectionately as like a mega resume, where it is, you know, a resume intended as a starting document. And when they apply to a job, what they do is they go through that resume and eliminate things. So it’s supposed to have everything in there.
You don’t have to do the thought process of trying to come up with something to include right to think about what do I add? It’s a process of elimination of would this be relevant? No, no, no, trim it down to the right size, make sure you’re focused on the right things and send it off, I think that’s a really good strategy.
And so you can incorporate this kind of feedback into that kind of document. Knowing that you’re going to tailor your document, and I know, you’ve heard me say it before.
I’m just gonna say it the ones, you’ve got to tailor the document to the opportunity, it has to match what you know about the hiring manager, the company, you know, if anything, and certainly the job description, as written, your resume, your application should mirror that as closely as you can to be sure that you’re really showcasing the things that are of importance to them.
And that if there are things you’re including, because of their transferable skill, nature, that you’re calling out, specifically how those things are related, you got to connect the dots for people because they don’t have the bandwidth or the mental energy or inclination to do it for themselves.
You’ve got to do it with these three strategies or ways to get feedback from the people who are interviewing you, without asking for feedback.
They won’t even really be aware, they’re giving you feedback, but they are by engaging in this back and forth with you. And hopefully, it gives you the opportunity to put yourself forward as your as the most favorable candidate that you can, and really increase your chances of getting that job should you want it. But even if not, it should provide some constructive feedback for you to incorporate into future applications.
Because you will not get that kind of constructive feedback by asking after you’ve been rejected, Oh, is there anything I could have done differently?
Or what you know why, why did you go with someone else, you’re not going to get that constructive feedback that way. It’s going to be vague, it’s going to be too high level to be actionable. It’s just not going to happen. I hope these strategies are helpful.
Put them in your pocket, bring them to your next job interview. I mean that metaphorically, of course, not. Not like literally written down in your pocket and try it out.
See what you learn. See what you learned about how you’re coming across and how you can improve your communication of your strength as a candidate.
That’s it for today. Bye for now.
Before you go, please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts, share and subscribe to this podcast. Your support makes all the difference and it truly helps this information reach someone who may really need it. Until next time, thanks for listening.
