A reader writes:
I (24F) graduated from college two years ago and was lucky enough to fairly quickly find a job in my field. I’m currently still working there, while also attending graduate school part-time. My boyfriend (26M) is currently in his last year of college and has started looking for his first post-college job in his field (tech).
Last week he was invited to several interviews at different companies in his field in our area. A few days before the first interview, I asked him how his interview preparations were going and indicated that if he needed someone to bounce his thoughts off, I’d be happy to help. At this, he scoffed and said “Why would I be preparing for my interviews? People don’t do that, at least not unless you’re not really qualified and are trying to think of ways to make yourself look better than you really are … I’ve never prepared for an interview in my life and I’ve never applied for a job I didn’t get!” (For context, all of his previous jobs have been part-time jobs in retail or food service). I disagree pretty strongly with the idea that only bad candidates need to prepare for interviews, but I didn’t feel it was my place to push so I gave a few brief suggestions on how I generally prepare for interviews and left it at that.
Well, now he’s had all of the interviews he had scheduled and has received rejections from all of them. He says they all went terribly and that he was embarrassed about them, but doesn’t seem to think his lack of preparation played any part. By no means do I consider myself to be an interview or job searching pro, but I do feel like I could help him find some resources (such as your free guide on how to prepare for an interview!) that would give him a better idea of how candidates should prepare for professional interviews, help him improve his interview skills in general, and overall help him become a better candidate.
How can I point him in the right direction in a way that comes across as helpful and supportive instead of seeming like I think I’m better than him or am saying “I told you so”? Is that possible, or am I better off continuing to leave it alone and let him figure it out for himself?
Oh dear.
Does your boyfriend have a pattern of thinking he knows best even in areas where he’s inexperienced and of ignoring evidence to the contrary? Or does he just have a weird blind spot about job searching? I know you’re not asking me for relationship advice, but if it’s the former, that can be really rough to live with long-term. On the other hand, he’s also right around the age where life tends to knock a lot of humility into people, if they pay attention. (Maybe a bit past it, actually, but not outrageously so.)
The thing that concerns me the most isn’t that he believes no one prepares for job interviews — that’s a weird thing to think, but people think all sorts of weird things when they’re new to the professional world. What worries me is that after bombing the interviews, he still doesn’t think preparation might help next time. That’s an odd digging-in of the heels, especially when someone he likes and respects (you) is making a rational argument for a different approach, and I wonder what’s behind it. Does he think he knows best and hate being wrong? Is he conflicted about moving into professional jobs or afraid of failure, and so he’s self-sabotaging?
If your question is really just how and whether you can point him in the right direction while still being supportive … I do think you can do that in general, but might not be able to do it with him specifically, depending on what’s behind this. The approach I’d take is to lay out what you’re seeing — not just “hey, preparing for interviews helps and is actually a thing you’re expected to do,” but “the way you’re approaching this is surprising to me, seems like self-sabotage, and I wonder what’s going on.” It’s a more intimate conversation, and it’s probably the one that would help both of you the most.
Beyond that, you could show him articles like this and this, which make the point that preparing for an interview is both normal and smart. (There’s also my free guide to preparing for a job interview if you do manage to convince him.) And you could ask if he’d be willing to try an experiment and prepare for just one interview this way, and then decide for himself afterwards if it was worth doing or not.
But if he’s not open to that, then you’re at the limits of what you can do as a concerned partner, and it’s up to him to figure it out from there.
my boyfriend thinks only bad candidates prepare for interviews was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
from Ask a Manager http://bit.ly/2RqGCLt
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