My first job interview

Learn from my mistake

It was my sophomore year of college. My roommates were were Business and Engineering students, all at least one year older than me — a significant gap at that age. By December they already had internship plans for the summer. I felt pressure from them and from my parents to get my first internship. I knew it was time to start making some returns on the massive amount of money being spent on my tuition.

The career fair at school was approaching and I saw that as my chance to get my foot in the door of the professional world. I had no resume, and no idea what to include in my resume it or what it should look like. Mine ended up being a combination of my roommates resume and some templates I found on google. It looked like a boring law document. 12 point times new roman, single space, with bulleted lists of “skills” I had learned from working at Pizza restaurant and Uhaul.

I went to the career fair, talked to people, followed up, and — to my surprise — landed an interview. Again, I was lost. I had no idea what to expect. I googled and googled and eventually wrote out a script of things I wanted to mention based on the job description from the companies website. It was hard. I felt pressure to use certain words and themes that I had read about online. The advice I took away from Google was incredibly general. I essentially memorized three stories about my life that I thought could be applied to the questions that the internet said would likely show up.

When the day of the interview came, I was really nervous. Prepared, but nervous. I had stuffed in so many buzzwords and business terms into my script that I felt like the stuff I had written down was about someone else. But I studied it. I studied my story and felt prepared for the questions I thought would appear.

When the interview began I did my best to remain calm. He started by asking some very generic questions and I responded with my memorized scripts. I felt confident. But then he threw in a curveball. Towards the end of the interview he asked “So, what music do you like?”. I was stunned. I hadn’t prepared for any personal questions because I was so focused on curating my responses to what I thought he wanted to hear. My favorite artist at the time was Young Thug, somewhat of a polarizing figure to say the least. I was scared to mention him because I thought it would contradict the professional image that I had been trying so hard to project. I panicked. I felt like my brain short-circuited. I was frantically trying to find something to say that wouldn’t ruin my image, and before I knew what happened, my mouth opened and I said “Uh…. Creed?”. I immediately knew that was a mistake.

I don’t even like Creed, and I’ll never forget the way the guy looked at me. It was a combination of surprise, confusion, and disgust. I didn’t get the job.

I learned a lot from that interview. First thing was, never try to lie on the spot during an interview. I was so concerned with mentioning my real favorite artist that I ended up saying a far worse option. In fact, I brought up Young Thug in my next interview and the woman interviewing me happened to be a Young Thug fan too. We connected instantly and the interview went so smooth after that. I ended up getting that job.

I learned a valuable lesson. Never hesitate to be transparent about yourself. Trying too hard to fit into a company’s mold ultimately hinders your opportunity to stand out and be unique. And never, ever, mention Creed in public.