3 Best Ways You Can Recover After Messing Up In An Interview

3 Best Ways You Can Recover After Messing Up In An Interview

By Michelle Wanjiku
Have you ever attended an interview for a job you really want, but when you were going through the answers you gave you realize you made a mistake. This is a situation we have all been in at least once.
Regretting something you said in an interview is completely normal; because of nerves or excitement.  You could have said something you didn’t want to or forgotten to mention something you really wanted to talk about.
Is there a way to correct this after you have left the interview? Such a situation is very tricky especially because mentioning your mistake will only serve to remind the interviewer of the same, but keeping quiet could deny you a great opportunity.
So before you go and start trying to correct any mistake you feel you made during the interview, you need to look at the situation very carefully. Here are a few tips to ensure you approach your post-interview damage control the right way.
1. Don’t over analyze everything
It’s only normal that you will be going through everything the interviewer said during the interview as well as what you said in order to try and figure out how you did.
However, it’s important to remember that as you go ahead and analyze the interview you don’t pay attention to every little mistake you think you made.
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This is because you are bound to find a few mistakes here and there but dwelling on these will not do you any good.
Not every mistake you think you made will ruin your chances of getting the job which means that there is no need to rehash them. But, if you are completely sure that you made a mistake big enough for the interviewer to have noticed, then you can move on to figuring out if there is something you can do about it.
2. Determine your next move
The next step is trying to figure out whether or not you should try and do damage control. The truth is some interviewers would appreciate this while others will choose to focus on the mistake instead.
This is why it is very important that you figure out whether the mistake you made is important enough to bring up again. It’s also important to consider whether or not doing this will benefit you in any way.
To do this you should ask yourself these questions;
Was it a make-or-break mistake?
Is the mistake going to affect whether or not you get the job? Will it have a big impact on the decision the interviewer makes on who to hire?
If you didn’t give enough information on the skills you possess that is critical to the position you were interviewing for, then this could have an impact on whether you are picked for the position or not.
However, if you forgot to mention something you did that has nothing to do with the job, then there is no point in bringing it up again.
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Can you recover by sharing additional information?
The whole point of damage control is being able to fix a situation and recover from it, so you need to ask yourself if whether reaching out to the interviewer again will help you in any way.
Your chance of the new information being taken well is very high when the correction requires something as short as a two-line email or something similar. The longer the explanation the less likely it will have a positive impact on your job prospects.
Another thing to remember is that your follow up should not be an apology, because it really doesn’t do anything other than reminding the interview you messed up.
For example, you should not send an email like, “I can’t believe I didn’t answer that question very well, I was a little nervous.”
If after answering all these questions you still feel like you have important information to add, then you can move into the next phase.
3. Fix it gracefully
The best way to do this is through a thank you note or email. This is because you were going to send it anyway so you might as well add the information you wanted to.
Remember to keep it short because again the interviewer doesn’t have time to read a three page thank you note.
For example, after thanking the interviewer you can say something like since we were talking about my writing experience, I would like to mention that I was an intern at ABC where I wrote 3 blog posts weekly. This experience will allow me to really excel at your new content manager.
You can also ask your referees to mention skills you forgot to talk about when they are called.
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In conclusion,
Lastly, the most important thing you can do after making a mistake in your interview is learning from it and ensuring you do not make the same mistake in your next interview. Good interview preparation is very important when it comes to acing an interview.
If you are up to the task, you can take a one on one mock coaching session to ensure you are fully prepared for your next interview.

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