Ten Common Job Interview Mistakes Candidates Should Avoid

A Software professional is said to prove himself time and again. Yes it’s not perfectly wrong at all. During the graduation you have to undergo the exams to prove your worth and most importantly you must establish yourself in the Final year project. You need to find all the suitable means try and use all the updated technical skills (using the most feasible programming language) and try to add innovation and creativity in your project to fulfill the purpose of an application to stand out from the rest. Interestingly the trend continues even after you engage yourself into the professional world. Here are few of the most important factors mentioned that are mostly the common job interview mistakes made by the candidates

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Practicing on Computer

One of the most common problems that candidate tend to do before taking up an interview after a while is perhaps thinking that just by knowing the concepts and basic syntax you are through with it. Quite often than not we realize it later that we tend to make numerous common job interview mistakes when we simply write a code and then execute it. At other times we can’t even write it properly and become out of sorts as we have not been executing it. It seems very simple but we miss it. The very fact of the matter is that execution of code opens the doors for the scenarios which an interviewee is bound to be boggled with. So just knowing the concepts without executing them is the first fallacy that you must get rid of.

Not Well Acquainted (Rehearsing)with the Behavioral Questions



Often candidates are left pondering over questions like “Ok Why Should We Hire You?” or “What is that special attribute that makes you stand out from the rest?” Candidates before taking up an interview process for a specific company must be well acquainted with their flow of behavioral
most common job interview mistakes candidates should avoid
questions and in general behavioral questions as a whole. It’s for valid reasons that these questions are being asked and it’s not a Time pass. Any Standard Software major will seek candidates who have the willingness to excel, confidence to bloom in a competitive environment where all the others are equally good, whether a late bloomer or an early bloomer, possibilities of gelling with a team or not and many other key areas. Candidates would have relatively fared well in the technical round and then messes up everything in the HR round or would be boggled towards the fag end of the technical round if asked behavioral questions. If you are not well acquainted with such questions and that results in your rejection then it can only hurt you back in the worst possible way.We already shared 15 Must Prepare behavioral interview questions and answers.

Try and Take a Mock interview

One of the  most common job interview mistakes is to do things  without preparation .Lets see how.
How often have you tried a stage rehearsal by taking a mock interview? Sounds funny!! Actually it will again help you from shedding away your doubts or inability to react to a scenario based question before the real stage. Taking a mock interview would definitely highlight the areas which are still relatively weak and that had seemed rather easy before. After you think that your prepared from your side to take the final cut you should definitely consider a mock interview.

Prepare yourself for Scenario based Questions

Dear Candidate please understand that if you are really aiming for the Dream job in the software industry and dream of joining one of the Top giants then this is one section where you have to devote your time and efforts. For both the experienced candidates and the freshers it is absolutely important to be prepared for the scenario based concepts. The former will be tested mostly based upon it but given the complexity of the requirements and the stringent hiring process nowadays even the freshers will be tested based upon scenarios.
common job interview mistakes one should avoid
In your regular working scope or domain (for experienced candidates), it’s not always that we are exposed to explore the various scenarios that might arise and boggle our minds so it’s absolutely important to have the profound logic of it. You can never give yourself the excuse that I am not open to such dynamism that I would explore. The easiest thing to do today is to google out when you need to get more information about an unexpected/unknown error that you encountered while executing a code testing a scenario. Interviewers would draw a scenario logically and you would be asked to present a solution to logically handle the problem. This concept in itself separates out the candidates who are trying to learn a concept by heart rather than understanding it. Moreover to excel in a highly competitive environment you are bound to be tested about your understanding of the underlying concept and its application. A scenario based question would perfectly test your in depth knowledge of the concept.


Learning by Heart

Are you Serious! If you are looking to get into the software domain as a Technical person then better think a 100 times! Trying to learn by heart, mugging up and memorizing a solution for any problem, a concept or even code whatsoever means you are absolutely in the wrong place. Don’t even think of it and try to re-evaluate what you aim to do. The concept of learning by heart doesn’t exist for a Technical person namely a Developer, Analyst, Applications Engineer, Architect and other software industry positions. The workflow is such that you apply programming techniques and concepts irrespective of the programming language and there is absolutely no scope of mugging up any single thing. Why? Because you have numerous concepts which furthermore has numerous ways of implementation. You can only master the concepts by executing them in the system and getting the desired output. Well that’s how it works, it’s completely logical and so it has to be done after understanding each and every concept. I hope this section is perfectly clear as you just cannot even dream of memorizing a concept unless you are insane.

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Very Outspoken

Are you extremely outspoken? Yes these are things perhaps which you as an individual should judge rather than someone else pointing it out to you. In a Technical interview most often it’s a trick to answer with few key words to draw the point of attention towards your strong areas. If you are asked about Bulk Collect, you can include “performance booster” in your reply while explaining the concept. But you obviously shouldn’t utter out of the world things and talk everything else apart from explaining the concept of Bulk Collect. So if you tend to talk more out in a situation then most often you would screw up the things by saying unnecessary things and also you might use a term which you are not at all well versed with at all. The very next question can very well be about that unintentionally invited danger that will trouble you. Apart from this you send out a particularly wrong signal to the interviewer by annoying him with all that he didn’t ask about and really buys out time to hear about.

Talking Very little during explanation

It’s equally bad for you to talk very little when you are needed to explain a concept in your own way. If you have a problem of expressing things it’s still better than talking very less and not covering the key aspects that the interviewer is looking for. So talk less but not very less and always ask questions to clear out what the interviewer is seeking out of the question.

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Do Not Rush and Let the Interviewer Finish Always

Dear candidate please always almost keep this in mind that you cannot to afford to rush during your interview process at any point of time. You should always let the interviewer finish first and then start talking. You can always ask a question multiple times to be clear about it but do not talk in return and try to overpower the interviewer. On being asked about a concept don’t try to trick the interviewer by rushing away with a concept as if you had to catch the immediate next minute train. The interviewer is smart enough as he’s sitting in that chair and it can very well be a sad ending to the process.


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Practice Coding

For all the candidates who are dreaming to secure a spot in their dream company must be well aware of the fact that you are not the only one. Please understand this carefully, there are many coders and programmers around the world and there is no scarcity of it. When you aim for a technical position in any of the Standard Software companies then you must practice coding in the real sense of coding. Don’t just see a Code and think that you know how to achieve the given problem. You have to think ahead of the rest and you have to gain the edge. So how do you do it? When you see certain approach or a code it’s someone else’s idea that you are looking into which is very much like being asked to debug a code which you have not written and most often if you are a programmer then you would not like it and find so many faults in it. So a given problem can be coded in various different ways and you must spend quality time for such coding practice. The other obvious benefits of coding practice that makes you prepare the right way is that you execute the code yourself, find out the errors, check the efficiency and represent it perfectly. So when you are asked to write a code you apply all the best coding practices in your code which is impressive and gives you the edge that can only happen when you practice coding. Bad coding is a rejection for many candidates for a software developer position in the giant MNC’s as they are involved in client side implementation and have to achieve the means by maintaining high standards. The giant MNC’s are very particular about following the correct coding standards to ensure high levels of quality, efficiency, performance and integrity of the applications. A software company having a world class software product will never compromise upon the coding standards.

Giving Up

It is common to be bombarded with tough questions in the interview, but you should not give up. Interviewers are more experienced than you . They also know that the question is difficult . Purpose of such questions to check whether candidate is trying and not giving up. So , no matter how difficult the question , remember to try it .    


I have shared the most common job interview mistakes that  i am aware of . If you  did make one in one of your interviews then write it out in comments. Its a big world , and there is nothing to be ashame of .So keep commenting !!

About The Author

Subham Mittal has worked in Oracle for 3 years.
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