What Most Job Seekers Forget During Interviews

A family member recently showed me a comprehensive document they had prepared for a crucial job interview. The 11-page document contained detailed responses for common interview questions, bullet points about the prospective employer and personal information. However, a key aspect was missing from the document — expressing their desire for the job.

Many job seekers — just like my relative — overlook this crucial detail: explicitly expressing their enthusiasm for the job opportunity to potential employers. My relative thought I was joking at first, but they soon realized they never once said they want the job within the document.

Sharing your excitement for the role is vital during job interviews. In fact, it can be the difference between moving forward in the hiring process and not.

The Art of Not Playing Hard to Get

Contrary to what you might hear elsewhere, job seekers don't gain anything from playing hard to get. I always tell people to be candid about their desire for a job. In all my years writing and researching the world of work, I've never met a recruiter or hiring manager who appreciates an aloof job applicant.

Think about it. Employers are not merely filling a position; they're onboarding new team members who are expected to be engaged and committed to the company's mission. An indifferent employee can negatively affect overall morale and productivity.

The value of engaged workers is well-recognized in the business community. Gallup's research underscores this, linking employee engagement to increased profitability, productivity, lower turnover, and enhanced customer loyalty.

"Gallup's research has also shown that companies with engaged workforces have higher earnings per share (EPS), and they seem to have recovered from the 2008 recession at a faster rate," according to a report on their findings.

Let Your Enthusiasm Shine From the Start

You should show your excitement and enthusiasm throughout the entire hiring process — from your first emails and calls to your offer negotiation.

Then, express your excitement and desire at the start of the interview. When the interviewer asks you the first question, take a moment to thank the person for talking with you about the role, tell them how excited you are about the opportunity, and say you really want the job.

You can reiterate your excitement throughout the interview by inserting it into other answers. Finally, you can punctuate the interview by restating your excitement and desire at the end.

Staying Genuine and Realistic

While enthusiasm is valuable, it cannot compensate for inadequate skills, which remain the primary consideration for any job application. Equally important is being genuine about your excitement for a job. Pretending to be passionate about a role only leads to trouble for both you and your employer.

Ultimately, your aim should be to secure a role where you can flourish and find some degree of enjoyment in the work. Demonstrating sincere enthusiasm for an opportunity can be a powerful tool in a competitive job market.

How do job seekers find employers that let them be themselves in the workplace? Rework Work's Stacey Gordon, is a LinkedIn Learning instructor and a diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) strategist with a wealth of experience in recruiting and workforce training. She joined me on the latest episode of the #GetHired podcast to talk about the various ways you can find out what it's really like to work at an employer and if they really let you… be you. You can find a transcript of the conversation and listen to the episode by clicking here.

COMING UP: 

Life tends to move a bit slower over the summer. The slower pace can allow you to get a lot done to set yourself up for a successful career move later in the year when business picks up again. But, what exactly should you do to put yourself in a good position when you're ready to make a move? Fortunately, we're chatting with May Busch, who is an executive coach and advisor, on the next episode of the #GetHired podcast. Busch explains the steps you should take now to be ready to make a move later in the year. Make sure you don't miss the episode by clicking "follow" on the play above or subscribing on Apple Podcasts by clicking here.

• How do you land a role in the AI field? (By Brandi Fowler) Job seekers may be surprised to learn that they can score six-figure AI jobs without coding knowledge or tech backgrounds. These relatively new job roles are prompt engineers, which train Large Language Models (LLMS) to provide accurate and useful responses. Pay rates range from $200 an hour for contract remote work to full-time positions paying up to $335,000, Fortune reported. So, how do you land these gigs? Tech execs said they are looking for persistence, logical thinking, curiosity, and cause-effect thinking. Familiarizing yourself with the basics of data science, machine learning and deep thinking can help, too. Click here to see what people are saying about the advice.
• What emails should job seekers write? (By Brandi Fowler) Job seekers can help set themselves up for success with correctly crafted emails. Fast Company reported that there are severall emails every job seeker should write. For example, an email to a person in their network. Also, an email following up on a networking gathering. Then, an email that acts as your cover letter. Click here to learn more and see best practices for each.
• How to land a job that's out of this world. (By Todd Dybas) Photos of Mars' surface jolted then-10-year-old Laurie Leshin in her mom's kitchen, launching a lifelong fascination with space. Those photos, a chance internship and ongoing efforts to learn vaulted Leshin into leadership roles in academia, including as the first woman president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, then to the fore in 2022 as the first woman to oversee NASA's 86-year-old Jet Propulsion Lab. In between, she gained master's and doctoral degrees in geochemistry from Caltech, served on presidential commissions, joined NASA, left NASA and returned as the director of the JPL. Oh, and Tom Hanks has something to do with all this, too. Click here to find out more.

Generative AI is taking over the world when it comes to content creation and other work-related items. While we don't really know what this holds for the future of work, it's impotant to understand the technology to remain competitive in the job market. This LinkedIn Learning course shows you how to research and writer using generative AI. You can watch the course below or by clicking here.