How can you tell how well the job interview is going? There are many bad interview signs…but unfortunately some of them don’t become obvious until the interview is well over!

Sometimes it can also be difficult to tell if the interview is going well because often the interviewer doesn’t give any verbal or other cues to let you know how you’re doing.

Here are some bad interview signs that hiring managers tend to tell me concerns them the most about people they interview and are things that you should try to avoid:

1. You talk too much: If you’re spending more time answering questions than you should be (ie. it takes you 2 minutes to answer a yes or no question) this is going to be noticed by the interviewer. Listen to the question and answer it in the most concise way possible.

2. You don’t come prepared with any relevant questions: Hiring manager usually want to know what you know about their company and the job ie. why do you want the job? You need to know this on the way in, in case it comes up during the interview.

3. You talk, but don’t answer the question that was asked: Talking a lot but avoiding the question is something that happens quite often in job interviews. Interviewers do notice when you evade the question or don’t answer the question they asked.

4. You seem money-motivated: Certainly if you’re interviewing for a sales role and tell the interviewer you want to earn a lot of money, that’s not a bad thing! But when you keep asking about salary and when the benefits kick in (I’ve heard of this happening…) it can literally ruin your chances at the job.

5. You talk in generalities: I’ve heard this one from hiring managers so many times, I’ve lost count. They ask the person to give a specific example of something important to the job they’re interviewing for, and the person can only respond with generalities or in theory ie. “what I’d do is…” In this case, interviewers don’t want to know what you’d do, they want to know what you’ve done.

6. You don’t appear to know much about the company and/or job: This happens more than you might think. People often think they can wing it and just show up and ace the interview. Not knowing about the job and company you’re applying for really shouldn’t happen. Most companies have a website and information regarding them is almost always easily available for anyone to find.

If – as you’re about to wrap up the interview – you get the sense that you said something in the interview you could have answered better, or perhaps feel that you didn’t answer a question properly, one way to try to rescue the situation can be to ask the interviewer “do you have any doubt of my abilities to do the job?” Alternatively, you could ask “is there anything I can clarify related to the question you’ve asked and my responses to them?”

I can’t recall how many times a hiring manager has told me following an interview with one of my candidates that there was one particular part of the person’s skillset that they aren’t quite sure about…and then decide to pass on the candidate and not offer them the job as a result.

Giving the interviewer the chance to ask you to clarify something might at least off you the opportunity to save the interview and perhaps take away any doubt they might have about your candidacy to do the job.