6 job interview mistakes to avoid

Although the economy seems to be showing signs of improvement, there are still more applicants for every job opening than there are available positions. In a survey, HR professionals outlined six interview mistakes that can instantly kill the possibility of receiving an offer.

2. Showing up late

Arriving on time for a job interview seems like common sense, right? Apparently not, as 29 percent of HR professionals noted that having candidates show up late for an interview was the most common mistake they see during the hiring process.

There may be times when a late arrival is out of your control, but the last thing an interviewer wants to start off hearing is a list of excuses. Candidates should always do their best to expect the unexpected and allow enough time to accommodate travel delays that might occur.

If something comes up that is truly out of your control, contact your interviewer as soon as possible to explain the situation and possibility of rescheduling. This will undoubtedly be received better than showing up late and wasting an interviewer’s time by keeping him or her waiting.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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