Have you been told «no» after an interview?

Adriana Miron
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

Me too. I thought I had a great curriculum and excellent qualifications but still I received a negative response, or none at all!

This used to happen to me at the very beginning of my career, as I had no idea that the key to advancing in a recruitment process depends a lot on that critical first impression.

What exactly is a first impression? Although it might seem like a simple answer, it’s not. A good impression is made up by hard skills and soft skills. We’ll focus on the latter for now.


Soft skills are, by definition, personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.

These are the ones you should always bring to an interview:

  • Be there early:

If you arrive to an interview on time, you’re late. My general rule is to arrive 15 mins earlier than the appointed time. This will not only give you a few moments to focus but it will also demonstrate to your future employer that you can manage your time appropriately and that their interview is important to you.

  • Dress accordingly:

But make sure to not overdo it. Proper grooming is essential, down to your fingertips. Wear something nice, but don’t wear heels or makeup if you don’t usually do, be authentic.

  • Do your research:

I cannot stress this enough. There’s nothing worse than having an interviewer ask you about their company or the role and responding with a blank stare, or worse yet, with a «what do you do, again?»

This is disrespectful to the interviewer as it shows that you don’t care enough about the company to take a few minutes to research it. I usually spend about 30 minutes on this before I interview.

  • Build rapport:

This one is kind of tricky, as you have to be very good at reading people, but you’ll get better with time.

The main thing here is to find something in common, for instance, I once interviewed with an Argentinian lady, and I’d worked with many Argentinians in the past, so I pointed that out and built rapport from there.

  • Follow up afterwards:

It’s polite to send a small thank you note via email after you’ve finished your interview. As a rule of thumb I send my thank you notes a day or two after the interview is done.

The note should be simple and should be strictly to say thanks, otherwise it could backfire.

  • Ask questions:

If you’ve done your research this one will be easy. The purpose of asking questions is to measure how thoughtful you really are.

One of my favorite go-to questions is «What’s the biggest challenge I would face going into this role?»


Now that you’ve got the basics, it’s time to polish those skills. How? Seek a mentor, volunteer somewhere you get to interact with lots of people, and don’t forget to seek out online courses and articles that’ll help you.

It’s time to get your dream job!

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