Section 14: Interviewing
After the Interview
Once the interview ends, there's still work to do. Your first action is to self-assess your performance. Hopefully, you utilized your notebook to jot down notes about your interview answers. While the interview is fresh in your mind, review your notes to brainstorm opportunities to improve.
During your review, you'll often come across parts of your story you forgot to discuss. You may even think of an entirely different scenario that would have been a better fit for the question. Make it a challenge to come up with 3 ways you would improve for the next interview.
Take notes of the changes you would make to reference in the future. Even if you forgot to share key information during the interview, there's still an opportunity in your follow-up thank you email to share it with the interviewer.
Your thank you email/note is an opportunity to briefly expand on anything you forgot to mention during the interview. The additional context provided should be concise and to the point; no more than 2-3 sentences explaining the situation.
Mindset Principle #7
Great interviewers are appreciative
Interviews are time-consuming, both for interviewers and candidates. The person conducting the interview has to prepare questions to ask, conduct the interview, and document feedback. A post-interview email is a great way to express your gratitude for their time.
After all interviews are completed, the hiring team will determine the candidate to extend a job offer to. For candidates, the time between their last interview and hearing an update can feel unnerving. Time seems to pass at a crawl.
That update will most likely come from the recruiter, though this isn't always the case. Once an offer is presented, you may have the option to negotiate certain details. Salary is the most common negotiation topic, but other areas like stock grants, time off, start date, sign-on bonuses, and relocation packages may also be up for discussion.