Feeling Incompetent in Senior Interviews? Ever experienced brain freeze during job interviews? Facing confidence issues in management roles? Let’s discuss how to overcome these hurdles together. Share your experiences and tips in the comments! #CareerStruggles #ConfidenceIssues #InterviewTips #ManagementRoles #BrainFreeze #CareerGrowth
>I was mortified afterward and had this realization that I know absolutely nothing. I don’t get it, because I *know* I can do these jobs just fine, and clearly if they’re scheduling me for interviews then my resume/experience at least partially matches their needs.
You’re just more nervous because the stakes are higher.
You will have to practice more on the interviewing side to get past that.
Also, instead of trying to focus during your practice/preparation on how to answer specific questions that you believe will come up, instead focus on being able to articulate what you do, and how you would do it (or currently do it). Practice being able to do that regardless of the level of familiarity of the person you are speaking to.
Then, then interview becomes more about listening to their actual concern or question, and covering that specific concern in your response. More about listening and less about basic regurgitation.
Yes, I often have the same feeling for roles I know I can (and have previously) do. You are not alone. Interviewing, both as a candidate and interviewer, is a skillset of it’s own and many of us are not great at it. It is rarely a good sign of your actual hard skills.
I’ve only had one interview recently that I knew I totally bombed and felt a little bit like an idiot afterward because they were asking me stuff that I honestly did not know about.
Now, I will say full heartedly that I am indeed becoming exhausted and fed up with the interview process and that I have minor to very little enthusiasm when it comes to conducting interviews due to the constant rejections. I’ll just basically sit there and nod my head and go through the motions, so-to-speak.
So not alone. I’ve completely froze a few times and felt like a complete idiot. I used to ace every interview I had and was never turned down for a role…..until the past year and three months I’ve been unemployed.
Each time I bomb, I lose a little more self esteem and honestly don’t know how much I have left to spare.
Same as all the comments here. I’m burnt out on researching the company, thinking of past projects/things I’ve worked on to talk about and feeling like I have to morph into some kind of unicorn these companies want. Exhausted. You’re not alone.
Depends on the field you’re in, but for more senior roles I feel like interviewing with people you don’t know is a complete waste *most* (but not all) of the time, and it’s better (if you’re senior and have been in the field a long time now) to develop relationships with others in your field who do your job or similar at other companies.
When someone inside the company says “Oh, I know this guy/gal and they are *good*!” you pretty much got the job if there’s one to get. Otherwise it’s a horrible process that just gets worse the more senior you are if you’re not a well-known big-name “rock star” in your industry.
it is not the case that you know nothing. it is deeply wired but true that the skillset used to land a job is different than the skillset used to perform the job. in my experience, the higher you go, the more this becomes apparent — I think this is probably because more senior roles are more competitive and incur much greater scrutiny.
you should plan to bomb some percentage of interviews and be comfortable with that outcome. you get better at interviewing for a given role exactly by going to more and more interviews. the trick is to have enough interviews in the pipleline that no one opportunity feels overly important, and, ideally, avoid cratering when interviewing for the most appealing opportunities (to the e limited extent that you can control this)
can u imagine the emotions on the interviewer side: candidate has a terrific resume, team prepped for the interview, team raised their hopes, and the candidate bombed, then hm blames the tech recruiter for not screening properly.
I’m at the point in my career where I should be thinking about management jobs, but I’m just not interested in the stress, especially where managing people is involved. It comes out when I try to interview for them. Yet I’m overqualified for specialist positions.
I’ve gotten to where I can’t even get the words out. I used to be able to speak, in my mind eloquently, but these days I am all duh, uh, uh.
No one knows anything. Most senior roles are bullshit.
You’re not alone. I was in the same boat and questioned myself, abilities, knowledge, etc.
my belief, the higher up you go the larger the scope of work, project management, you name it, it is hard to put it all into words without being turned into word vomit or talking in circles. I also think because you manage things it is hard to solely sell how well you did when you really just oversaw at times rather than being in the weeds with the team.
I wouldn’t sweat it too much. I hope the next interview you crush it!
Interviews can be freaking brutal.. my last one it was a better position within the team I’m already in.. so interviewing with managers who already know me..
Fluffed it beyond recognition.. spent more time trying to validate why I worked for the organisation and how good I was at my current role and not enough on even remotely attempting to sell myself.. 🤦♀️ I was such a dumbass.
I didn’t get it. External candidate got it.. discovered they didn’t even have some of the minimum requirements for the role.. I was mortified..
Sadly for people like us.. it’ll happen.. all you can do is try and remember the types of questions.. get some feedback.. try and find out what others think your strengths are if it’s not something you’re sure of (I tend to sell myself short) and hope you do better next time ..
👍
I’m feeling dumb after a lack of a job. Not exercising my brain is making me dumber for sure. I get tired after an interview, let alone working 8 hours a day again.
That is common with age. Younger people are more easily duped into believing their own b.s. I know I was able to do that. I do know if I was interviewing someone in their late 30s to 40s and they were super overconfident i question their analytical abilities.