Failed Job Interview – Now What?
In this post, I will talk to you about a brand new way to view your failure, and how it can lead you to a more confident you.
If you’ve failed an interview recently, or you have one coming up and you’re nervous about this post is for you.
It’s all about how to think if you do happen to fail, why failure is a good thing and why it’s really no big deal at all.
So stay tuned.
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POINT #1: The benefits of failing:
The benefits of failing. Let’s talk about little kids failing. A useful example is that of a little child learning how to walk because they do so many epic fails in this process!
It’s like you look at that those kids trying to walk, and it is not fun.
They are eating crow like every 3rd step.
What’s so interesting is that when they fall, one of the only reasons that they’re not walking well is because they don’t have the strength. When they fall they have to pull themselves back up, that pulling themselves back up is what gives them the strength to ultimately be able to walk.
If they stopped trying to walk because they were failing, then they would never have the opportunity to get strong enough to be able to walk, so it’s because of the failing, through the falling down that they get strong enough to do it and ironically that is where confidence comes from.
Confidence is a person’s willingness to fail in front of other people, then get back up and do it again until they get it right.
POINT #2 Here is the good news! Confidence is your willingness to fail
For me, for example, I like to try new things. I like putting myself out there on the edge of my comfort zone.
I was trying to figure out why I like to do that personally. It’s because I’m very willing to fail, and I’m willing to fail in front of other people.
I remember the first time I grabbed a microphone and sang in front of the entire school, I was shaking and super scared, and it would have been considered a fail because I did not win the talent contest, but since that young age if I could do that, then failing wasn’t such a big deal anymore.
That’s why failure isn’t one of those concepts that you just talk about after you don’t do well on a math test. Failure is something you have to consider as something to include in your life. It’s not something to avoid. It’s something to do on purpose and to get very good at.
If I feel confident about my ability to fail, you can see how I’m probably going to try new things, put myself out there, and probably be successful because as I fail and as I plan to fail, I will continue to do it and that means I will continue to succeed and stretch myself to see what’s really possible.
POINT #3 Framing Reframing Failure:
I have had several students frame failure in a few different ways.
For example:
Believing in our capacity to learn, and instead of using the word “failure,” using the word “learning.” or using the word “Experimenting”.
Failure is the road to success, you are on the right track.
You may have heard the quote from Thomas Edison regarding the light bulb “No. I didn’t fail a thousand times. I learned a thousand things that didn’t work.”
That’s how we can look at our own quote-unquote “Failures” as just learning opportunities, experiences, or experiments.
Seeing them as “Okay, we didn’t meet our expectation. We didn’t take correct action, so we just need to adjust that and change it until we do meet our own expectations.”
When we think about that word “Failure,” think about it in a way that is positive. Think about it in a way as something we want to move towards instead of something that we want to move away from.
POINT #4 Practicing failure.
Failure is a skill that we develop. If we are good at falling down, we actually learn how to fall down really well. Then, we’re going to have confidence going into our future to get back up easily.
So for example: What if your goal was to fail 5 times then What if when you failed, when you did something that didn’t work in a job interview for example, or at work, you didn’t do the normal big disappointment, regret, angry series of feelings but instead you skipped that and were like: “Ok failure number 1! I can put that in my notes now.”
It’s a whole new perspective. It’s like 1 fail down, 4 to go. When I started doing this I had so much more confidence when I try new things because the worst thing that can happen, ultimately, is that I fail.
The worst thing beyond that is how I would feel about my quote-unquote “failure” by what I would decide to make it mean. I know that I’m not going to make it mean anything negative now.
I’m going to make it mean “Hey! A 3 out of 5, done!” It’s really up to my excitement, my anticipation, my momentum towards the future because of that willingness that I now have to simply fail.
In conclusion
And there you have it Failed Job Interview – Now What? Remember failure is part of this process.
You will not succeed every time, you’re not supposed to. It’s ok to learn, evolve and you do that by failing.
So how can you set yourself up for your next interview to be successful?
Well the first thing you can do is to make sure you are as well prepared as you possibly can be. And you can start by downloading my free guide.
Click here below to grab it NOW!
What you’ll get inside the guide:
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Top-ten examples of stories that have proven to be impressive interview answers
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The S.A.R.I. formula breakdown of how to answer these questions
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The step-by-step of why it works
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Fill-in-the-blank templates for each question so, you’ll be able to fill in the blanks and get going!
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Now you’ll need to come up with your own stories! (You can steal the ones in the guide if they apply to you though too, I don’t mind)
If you are still getting stuck because you can’t think of your own stories…
I’ve included 25 questions that you can ask yourself to come up with your stories much quicker!
You’ll get all this in a beautifully designed workbook prepared specifically for you to prepare for your interviews.
By the end of working through this guide, you’ll be feeling confident and ready for any situational interview that comes your way!
Here is some feedback I’ve gotten from this guide, and I get new emails like this every day, and they NEVER get old!
Do you know one person who could benefit from the information in this post? If so, do your friend a favour and share this info with him/her.
And remember, the current system isn’t perfect, but you can outsmart it. I’m here to prove to you that you do have what it takes.
I’ll see you next time and I can’t wait!
In Work & Life
I’ve got your back
– XO Natalie