reasons people fail an interview

It is essential that when you make it to the interview stage you are ready to give your best, as once you leave the interview room there is almost nothing you can do to rescue a bad interview. Nine reasons why people fail at interview

1. Lack of awareness of the company

Your basic interview preparation should include finding out about the company and the role. The biggest interview killer is "So what do you people do exactly?"

2. Appearance

Conservative business attire is always the most reliable way to dress. Don't be misled by the company whose dress code is casual. Interviews are considered a formal business situation. You can dress down once you are hired.

3. Lack of preparation

Anticipate the technical and personal questions that each interviewer will most likely ask. Specifically, relate experiences you have had to the skills and personality attributes being questioned. Be prepared to answer questions with specific examples of your strengths and accomplishments.

4. Failing the basics

Turn up on time, if you fail to make the effort you will fail to get the job. Recruitment consultants will not put candidates forward who are not good ambassadors for the agency. If you anticipate being late or cancelling the interview, call the interviewer or your consultant as early as possible. This conveys courtesy as well as demonstrating that you are in control of your schedule even when a crisis arises. Few managers will reject you if they are given reasonable notice.

5. Lack of/over enthusiasm

Even though companies say they hire candidates with particular skill sets, interviews depend significantly on the connection between interviewer and candidate. If you express and exhibit enthusiasm for your work, your career and the new company, you are much more likely to receive an offer. How you say something is just as important as what you say. You need to understand how your particular personality communicates during an interview. You only have one chance to make a first impression.
However, over-enthusiasm is an equal killer. This is especially hard on people who have been out of work for some time and are desperate to get a job — any job. The paradox is that the willingness to take any job is likely to mean ending up taking no job.

6. Negativity

Never criticise a former company, position or boss. You can "re-frame" your job frustration by talking about your desire to contribute more, participate on a team or assume greater challenges. Almost everyone has worked for a difficult boss at some point in his or her career; this is one of the top reasons why people change jobs. Keep your comments and your attitude positive; negativity about your former or current company is an interview killer.

7. Failing to listen

During the interview ask about the skills, experience and personality traits that are important to success on the job. You will then articulate these same qualities as they apply to you. If you are too busy formulating your next idea to listen carefully, you will miss this critical information. Without listening carefully to the interviewer, you are shooting at a target while blindfolded.

8. Lack of supporting evidence

People remember stories far more than they remember facts and figures. Have the evidence to illustrate each of your skills and personality attributes, and relevant and transferable experience, important to the job.

9. Lying, or over embellishing

Don't even think of lying in an interview. It will bite you on the ankle at some point. Once you start it is impossible to stop and the lie will get more and more involved. If you are caught out, not only will you not get the job, but you may be dropped by your agency. Over embellishment is a more common failing. The line between it and lying is a fine one. For an experienced consultant it is usually quite easily spotted. Be proud of your achievements, talk them up, don't make them up.
Thomas J. Dougherty & Associates, a US recruitment company, interviewed 150 other recruitment consultants. They produced a list of the 30 most common mistakes candidates made in interviews: (in no particular order)

• Poor personal appearance.
• Lack of interest and enthusiasm: Passive and indifferent.
• Over emphasis on money: interested only in best offer.
• Condemnation of past employers.
• Failure to look at the interviewer when conversing.
• Limp, fishy handshake.
• Unwillingness to go where sent.
• Late to interview.
• Failure to express appreciation for interviewer's time.
• Asks no questions about job.
• Indefinite response to questions.
• Overbearing, over aggressive, conceited with superiority or "know it all complex."
• Inability to express self clearly: Poor voice diction, grammar.
• Lack of planning for career: no purpose and goals.
• Lack of confidence and poise: nervous ill at ease.
• Failure to participate in activities.
• Unwilling to start at the bottom-expects too much too soon.
• Makes excuses, evasive, hedges on unfavourable factors in record.
• Lack of tact.
• Lack of courtesy: ill mannered.
• Lack of maturity.
• Lack of vitality.
• Indecision.
• Sloppy application.
• Merely shopping around.
• Wants job for short time.
• No interest in company or industry.
• Low moral standards.
• Cynical.
• Lazy.
• What happens if you know you are botching the interview?

Correct it. Once you leave the room, your fate is sealed. If you know that things are going badly, you can try to put the interview straight. A willingness to admit mistakes is not going to harm the impression you make.
If you know where you went wrong, then say so to the interviewer and tell them what you meant to say.
If it is a more nebulous feeling that the interview is running away from you, then ask the interviewer outright how the interview is going, and are there any issues you can address. Tell them that you don't feel you have made the right impression and provide the evidence of the impression you meant to make. It may well not work, but if you really have blown the interview, what have you got to lose?

sources:
 Job interviews: reasons people fail an interview
 Seven reasons why people fail in interviews
Common reasons why people fail at interviews