I received some great feedback after giving a seminar about interviewing with two colleagues at the Industrial Designers Society of America national conference in Austin last September. It made me realize that you can’t give people too much advice about interviewing. There are so many opportunities for people to fail in a situation where everyone is under pressure and there is no way to make the process foolproof, much as I would love to.

Watch what you eat
The feedback is from the president of a design consulting firm in New England. He says that at his company, one of the job interviews always occurs over a meal. Clue: most people do not get hired after one interview. First, he says, the people he interviews this way don’t generally have good table manners and they should learn them. (A quick review of table manners is available on many sites. I checked some out to review my own behavior—I’m fine.) Then he adds, “Think about what you order. Do not order the BIG salad. It’s messy, noisy and time consuming to eat. Order a small portion of something discrete.” In all the talks and articles I have written, the idea of messy and noisy salads never crossed my mind, but he is 100% right. How often I have felt foolish when a piece of arugula was hanging from the side of my mouth. Now that I think about it, that’s great advice even for those of us who make our living selling, and often dine with prospects. His last piece of advice regarding taking a meal with a prospective employer is, “Don’t drink alcohol.”

Watch what you drink
I agree. Even if wine is ordered for the table, you may accept getting your glass filled, but don’t drink it. You need to be in complete control and your mind has to be sharp. The adrenalin flowing through you is there because you want to get this right. It is keeping you sharp. Don’t dampen it with alcohol. A candidate we recommended for a vice president of design position with a global company went to dinner with a group from the company on the evening of the day he was interviewed every hour by a different individual. Yes, it was stressful, but he behaved badly. He was rejected for the position simply because he drank too much.

A close friend owns an advertising agency in a country where even lunch is accompanied by a glass or two of the local wine. He rejected a candidate as not having self-control when the individual ordered one bottle of wine for two people at lunch. The purpose of having a meal together was to find out if the person was right for a job. By ordering a bottle of wine, he was not focused upon the business at hand. He was also not paying for lunch.

Good manners
According to Emily Post (still the authority on good manners), it is rude to be boring. Well, I think designers should remind themselves of this and should be brief when asked a question during a telephone interview, or one that takes place in person. This “going-on-and-on” with every answer has become so out of control lately that we preface our first question with, “Please be brief,” and if circumstances dictate that we need to repeat it prior to the second question, we do. When a potential employer or a headhunter asks a question about your experiences or the content in your portfolio, please, just answer the question. Don’t make the same point three different ways. Concentrate on the question and don’t go off on a tangent because you were reminded of something you think the interviewer should be interested in before asking if, indeed, they are interested in what you are going to say. Interviewers usually have an agenda. They want to gather very particular nuggets of information about you. When we find an interviewee who is out of control in this way, we give a reason to cut the interview short without the candidate knowing they are being dismissed, and move on to the next person.

Going-on-and-on is usually coupled with behavior that doesn’t allow the conversation to have any give and take. The interviewee is pontificating when she should be balancing talking with listening. Don’t fall in love with yourself and what you have to say in these circumstances; fall in love with being respectful, kind and considerate, which is appropriate interviewing behavior.