Strategies for Recovering After Blowing a Major Interview

Dear Lawcrossing,

I feel like a complete idiot. I went to a job fair and I got an interview with my dream employer. It was scheduled for four o'clock. I didn't want to stand around for the rest of the day so I signed up for three interviews with other employers before that, and they turned out to be all in a row. By the time I got to the interview I really wanted, I was spent. I don't know how to explain what happened except that it was like a nervous breakdown. I couldn't talk at all. I was hyperventilating and everything. The interviewer was really nice and tried to help me calm down but nothing worked. So for the whole 20 minutes I didn't say anything. I couldn't pull myself together. This is an employer I really want. What should I do? Totally Panicked,


DC, New York

DEAR DC,

LawCrossing has heard many interview disasters, DC, but she must admit that yours is-well-unique. But what it does have in common with every other interview disaster that has ever crossed the LawCrossing's heavenly radar screen is this: you will overcome it, one way or another.

One option depends on your chutzpah quotient. One director suggests calling the interviewer, and saying brightly, "Well, you've seen me at my worst. I'd love the chance to let you see me at my best." The interviewer may well admire your courage enough to give you a second chance, and there's no downside risk. Of course, it's possible the interviewer may laugh derisively and say, "Ha! Are you kidding?" And, of course, that's where the necessity for chutzpah on your part comes in.

Another lower-chutzpah possibility is to shake the trees for other routes into the same employer. But before you do this, it is vital for you to come up with a credible explanation for your imploding interview, and-most importantly-your explanation must be one that will not reflect on your ability to do the job. For instance, if you are seeking a prosecutor's job, it would not serve you well to explain that, "Oh, 1 crack under pressure." You'd want to accentuate the fact that this has never happened to you before (LawCrossing trusts that it hasn't), it won't happen again, and if you can, come up with a quip to lighten the moment-"If Guinness had a record for Most Embarrassing Moments, I think that interview would qualify!"

With your explanation in hand, check with your career services office, your classmates, alumni relations director, professors, alums-anyone you know in the community. Explain your plight and ask for advice. While you might feel bad about your abortive first interview right now, LawCrossing is hunching that if your approach is smooth enough, your willingness to try again will be viewed as a very positive stick-to-it-iveness.

Of course, DC, it may well be that neither direct nor indirect routes into this particular employer will work- right now. But LawCrossing need scarcely point out that "right now" isn't terribly meaningful if this really is a dream employer. You've got many decades in front of you, and there's no reason in the world that that dream employer can't be part of your future. By way of analogy LawCrossing reminds you of the pundits who wrote Richard Nixon's political obituary after his loss in the 1962 California gubernatorial race, when he sneered at the press, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." Remember, it was only six years later that he was elected President. (At which point he gave the press plenty of chances to kick him around.)

The message? At worst, think about other things you want to do. It may well be that those alternatives will provide the experience you need to lateral into your dream employer a couple of years down the road. That "apprenticeship" will go far more quickly than you realize right now, DC. And more importantly, LawCrossing assures you that there are many employers for whom you would enjoy working-just as much, if not more, than the one you have in mind right now.

See the following articles for more information:
 

• 21 Major Interview Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
• The Best Way to Prepare for a Job Search and Interviews
• How to Talk About Other Interviews in Your Interviews
• How to Answer the Tell Me About Yourself Interview Question
• How to Answer the Do You Have Any Questions for Me Interview Question