Take the Interview

Happy new year!  I hope you are staying safe and healthy and ready to jump into 2022 with both feet.

As I’ve said several times recently, this is a wacky job market. There is huge demand in food service, warehouse work, and other trades. There is a significant number of voluntary quits in all arenas, which means that those jobs need to be filled by someone else.  I expect the employment activity this first quarter of 2022 to be through the roof. It is a great time to be job seeker.

So, let’s imagine what would otherwise be an unusual scenario.  Say you apply for a job that you are only lukewarm about, but they call you for an interview. What do you do?  You could pass because you really don’t want the job, and I just told you that there were plenty more fish in the sea, right?

Take the interview! There are at least three good reasons that you should take the interview and go into it as if this is the best job ever.

1. Practice – To land the job you really want, you need to be good at being interviewed. This gives you the best possible practice. You get to hear and respond to questions, gauge the interviewer’s reaction, and practice your questioning techniques.
2. Networking – Even if you don’t think you want this job, you might learn about a different job at this company, or you might be able to include the recruiter and/or hiring manager in your network to help find a job someplace else.
3. You might like the job – Want ads are tiny slices of jobs, designed to attract candidates and to weed out the unqualified.  You won’t really know what the duties, the work environment, etc. are just by reading the job posting.  But, by going through the interview process and talking with people, you might find out that this job is better than you thought.

Let’s be real, what the worst thing that can happen by interviewing for a job you don’t think you want?  Maybe you waste a couple of hours of time.  Maybe you run into your current boss in the HR office (awkward).  Maybe you have to turn down an offer.  Those are all pretty small risks.  If you get a chance to go through the job interview process, take it. The practice alone is worth your investment in time, and maybe it will turn out even better than you expected.  If you need some help with your job search, try this: https://im-fired.com/about-the-book/.